Acromegaly Research: Inspiring Collaboration for the Future of Health

"Shrek" Was Actually Real!

Despite the vital importance of early diagnosis, there is a 6-10 year time difference between the onset of the first symptoms of the disease and the diagnosis of the disease. Therefore, the study aimed to automatically recognize acromegaly patients from facial images for early diagnosis. In patients with acromegaly, changes in the face, such as growth in the nose, chin, cheekbones and forehead, swelling in soft tissue, and thickening of the skin, are observed. These changes may go unnoticed by both the patient and their relatives due to their very slow progression. Perhaps the most well-known example of this disease is Shrek. Shrek is actually a real person, a wrestler, and has been a world champion, but had to quit his profession due to the progression of his disease. Although Shrek represents one of the most well-known examples of this disease, there are many different people struggling with this disease.

Acromegaly Detection with Artificial Intelligence: 99.7% Success!

Thanks to the developed method, it has become possible to scan millions of people without effort through computer-aided systems and detect those suspected of acromegaly. In the study, facial images and videos of 77 Acromegaly patients followed up at the Health Sciences University Dışkapı Training and Research Hospital, Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases Clinic, and 71 healthy individuals were included in accordance with the ethics committee decision. As a result of experimental studies, the proposed AcroEnsemble method based on Deep Learning, a sub-branch used in Artificial Intelligence, achieved a 99.7% success rate in distinguishing healthy and acromegaly faces. This high success rate could usher in a new era for this disease, which has not seen any improvement in diagnosis time for 30 years.

Acromegaly Research: An Inspiring Collaboration for the Future of Health

The project consisted of different disciplines and a culture of collaboration. In this project, researchers from MAKÜ (Dr. Elvan Duman), Health Sciences University (Assoc. Prof. Dr. Muhammed Kızılgül, Dr. Hayri Bostan, Dr. Ümran Gül, Dr. Bekir Uçan, Dr. Hakan Düger, Dr. Erman Çakal), Cumhuriyet University (Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rukiye Karakış), Selçuk University (Prof. Dr. Nurettin Doğan) and TOBB University (Prof. Dr. Ömer Akin) participated. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Muhammed Kızılgül presented the initial findings of the study at the 43rd Turkish Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases Congress and the 20th European Endocrinology Association Congress held in Lyon, France. Finally, the researchers published this study in the prestigious journal of the European Endocrinology Association, "European Journal of Endocrinology", and the project has now been implemented. The implementation of this project on patients in the medical world in the future could make significant contributions to the field.