Researchers at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine in Chattanooga were part of a major multicenter international study just published in the journal Lancet Digital Health. The study evaluated the effectiveness of a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) system for detecting polyps in screening and surveillance colonoscopy.
Arslan Kahloon, MD, associate professor and program director of Gastroenterology fellowship, is an author on the paper. Giuseppe Pizzorno, PhD, PharmD, associate dean for Research and chief research officer at Erlanger Health System, was the Chattanooga team lead on the study.
Though colonoscopy is considered the gold standard for early detection and removal of precancerous polyps, a substantial number of polyps can be missed during the procedure. Missed lesions are a serious concern, as this can lead to interval colon cancer. It is estimated that at least 50% of all post-colonoscopy colorectal cancer develop from them.
The newly published study took place over 14 months, from 2020 to 2022, across 10 leading medical centers, with 31 endoscopists and 952 enrolled patients. Erlanger Health System was the lead site for recruiting patients, working in collaboration with other U.S. centers such as Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and Metro Health Medical Center, as well as centers in Germany, Netherlands, and Israel.
The study validated the effectiveness of a new computer-aided system MAGENTIQ-COLO™. Results showed that using this AI-guided system increases adenoma detection rate by 7% and decreases the adenoma miss rate by 19%. These numbers are high enough to have a strong connection to the decrease in colorectal cancer occurrence and patient mortality.
Read more at our UTHSC news site.