Research Article
Assessing Deep Learning Techniques for the Recognition of
Tropical Disease in Images from Parasitological Exams
Ammar Akram Abdulrazzaq,
1
Asaad T. Al-Douri,
2
Abdulsattar Abdullah Hamad ,
3,4
Mustafa Musa Jaber,
5
and Zelalem Meraf
6
1
Department of Medical Laboratory Technologies, Al-Maarif University College, Ramadi, Iraq
2
Department of Dental Industry, College of Medical Technology, Al-Kitab University, Alton Kopru, Iraq
3
Department of Medical Laboratory Techniques, Dijlah University College, Baghdad 10021, Iraq
4
Department of Medical Laboratory Techniques, Al-Turath University College, Baghdad 10021, Iraq
5
Department of Medical Instruments Engineering Techniques, Al-Farahidi University, Baghdad 10021, Iraq
6
Department of Statistics, Injibara University, Injibara, Ethiopia
Correspondence should be addressed to Zelalem Meraf; zelalemmeraf@inu.edu.et
Received 6 April 2022; Revised 23 April 2022; Accepted 27 April 2022; Published 9 May 2022
Academic Editor: Sivakumar Pandian
Copyright © 2022 Ammar Akram Abdulrazzaq et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
Schistosoma mansoni is one of the tropical diseases with the greatest epidemic reach in the world. One of the WHO guidelines is
the prior and efficient diagnosis for mapping foci and applying the appropriate treatment of infected people. e current process
for diagnosis still depends on an analysis of parasitological exams performed by a human being under a laboratory microscope.
e area of pattern recognition in images presents itself as a promising alternative to support and automate image-based exams,
and deep learning techniques have been successfully applied for this purpose. In order to automate this process, it is proposed in
this work the application of deep learning methods for the detection of schistosomiasis eggs, and a comparison is made between
two deep learning techniques, convolutional neural network (CNN) and structured pyramidal neural network (SPNN). e
results obtained in a real database indicate that the techniques are effective in the recognition of schistosomiasis eggs, in which
both obtained AUC (area under the curve) above 0.90, with the CNN showing superiority in this aspect. . However, the SPNN
proved to be faster than the CNN.
1. Introduction
Schistosomiasis is one of the most endemic neglected
tropical diseases in the world, according to the World Health
Organization (WHO) [1]. Schistosomiasis is present in 76
countries across Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, the
Western Pacific, and the Americas. It is estimated that 200
million people are infected with the disease and 500 million
people are exposed to risk areas [2]. In the Arabic region, the
estimated number of individuals infected with schistoso-
miasis is 2.5 million people, but this number can reach 6.5
million due to lack of diagnosis or mapping of some endemic
regions [3, 4]. ere is still a lack of research that carries out
mapping more endemic regions in the country. e most
recent research was carried out using georeferenced data by
field researchers to map the prevalence of schistosomiasis in
the northeast region, more specifically in the coastal region
of the state of Schaap et al. [4]. According to the London
Declaration’s definitions, the fight against schistosomiasis,
according to the definitions of the London Declaration [5],
involves the search for new techniques for diagnosis and
mapping of the disease, which are easy to use, reliable, and
low cost for patient monitoring and identification. With this,
the aim is to observe the emerging behavior of this endemic.
Computational techniques and new clinical analysis tech-
nologies are already widely used to support decision-making
in the medical field and detect various diseases in medical
image examinations. Schistosoma mansoni [6] is an infection
Hindawi
Bioinorganic Chemistry and Applications
Volume 2022, Article ID 2682287, 8 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/2682287