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Aims
Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in gastrointestinal endoscopy are narrow because they are trained to solve only one specific task. Unlike Narrow-AI, general AI systems may be able to solve multiple and unrelated tasks. We aimed to understand whether an AI system trained to detect, characterize, and segment early Barrett’s neoplasia (Barrett’s AI) is only capable of detecting this pathology or can also detect and segment other diseases like early squamous cell cancer (SCC).
Methods
120 white light (WL) and narrow-band endoscopic images (NBI) from 60 patients (1 WL and 1 NBI image per patient) were extracted from the endoscopic database of the University Hospital Augsburg. Images were annotated by three expert endoscopists with extensive experience in the diagnosis and endoscopic resection of early esophageal neoplasias. An AI system based on DeepLabV3+architecture dedicated to early Barrett’s neoplasia was tested on these images. The AI system was neither trained with SCC images nor had it seen the test images prior to evaluation. The overlap between the three expert annotations („expert-agreement“) was the ground truth for evaluating AI performance.
Results
Barrett’s AI detected early SCC with a mean intersection over reference (IoR) of 92% when at least 1 pixel of the AI prediction overlapped with the expert-agreement. When the threshold was increased to 5%, 10%, and 20% overlap with the expert-agreement, the IoR was 88%, 85% and 82%, respectively. The mean Intersection Over Union (IoU) – a metric according to segmentation quality between the AI prediction and the expert-agreement – was 0.45. The mean expert IoU as a measure of agreement between the three experts was 0.60.
Conclusions
In the context of this pilot study, the predictions of SCC by a Barrett’s dedicated AI showed some overlap to the expert-agreement. Therefore, features learned from Barrett’s cancer-related training might be helpful also for SCC prediction. Our results allow different possible explanations. On the one hand, some Barrett’s cancer features generalize toward the related task of assessing early SCC. On the other hand, the Barrett’s AI is less specific to Barrett’s cancer than a general predictor of pathological tissue. However, we expect to enhance the detection quality significantly by extending the training to SCC-specific data. The insight of this study opens the way towards a transfer learning approach for more efficient training of AI to solve tasks in other domains.
Effect of AI on performance of endoscopists to detect Barrett neoplasia: A Randomized Tandem Trial
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Background and study aims
To evaluate the effect of an AI-based clinical decision support system (AI) on the performance and diagnostic confidence of endoscopists during the assessment of Barrett's esophagus (BE).
Patients and Methods
Ninety-six standardized endoscopy videos were assessed by 22 endoscopists from 12 different centers with varying degrees of BE experience.
The assessment was randomized into two video sets: Group A (review first without AI and second with AI) and group B (review first with AI and second without AI). Endoscopists were required to evaluate each video for the presence of Barrett's esophagus-related neoplasia (BERN) and then decide on a spot for a targeted biopsy. After the second assessment, they were allowed to change their clinical decision and confidence level.
Results
AI had a standalone sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 92.2%, 68.9%, and 81.6%, respectively. Without AI, BE experts had an overall sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 83.3%, 58.1 and 71.5%, respectively. With AI, BE nonexperts showed a significant improvement in sensitivity and specificity when videos were assessed a second time with AI (sensitivity 69.7% (95% CI, 65.2% - 74.2%) to 78.0% (95% CI, 74.0% - 82.0%); specificity 67.3% (95% CI, 62.5% - 72.2%) to 72.7% (95 CI, 68.2% - 77.3%). In addition, the diagnostic confidence of BE nonexperts improved significantly with AI.
Conclusion
BE nonexperts benefitted significantly from the additional AI. BE experts and nonexperts remained below the standalone performance of AI, suggesting that there may be other factors influencing endoscopists to follow or discard AI advice.
Background
This study evaluated the effect of an artificial intelligence (AI)-based clinical decision support system on the performance and diagnostic confidence of endoscopists in their assessment of Barrett’s esophagus (BE).
Methods
96 standardized endoscopy videos were assessed by 22 endoscopists with varying degrees of BE experience from 12 centers. Assessment was randomized into two video sets: group A (review first without AI and second with AI) and group B (review first with AI and second without AI). Endoscopists were required to evaluate each video for the presence of Barrett’s esophagus-related neoplasia (BERN) and then decide on a spot for a targeted biopsy. After the second assessment, they were allowed to change their clinical decision and confidence level.
Results
AI had a stand-alone sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 92.2%, 68.9%, and 81.3%, respectively. Without AI, BE experts had an overall sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 83.3%, 58.1%, and 71.5%, respectively. With AI, BE nonexperts showed a significant improvement in sensitivity and specificity when videos were assessed a second time with AI (sensitivity 69.8% [95%CI 65.2%–74.2%] to 78.0% [95%CI 74.0%–82.0%]; specificity 67.3% [95%CI 62.5%–72.2%] to 72.7% [95%CI 68.2%–77.3%]). In addition, the diagnostic confidence of BE nonexperts improved significantly with AI.
Conclusion
BE nonexperts benefitted significantly from additional AI. BE experts and nonexperts remained significantly below the stand-alone performance of AI, suggesting that there may be other factors influencing endoscopists’ decisions to follow or discard AI advice.