The impact of AI on the quality of upper GI endoscopy
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The impact of Artificial Intelligence on the quality of upper gastrointestinal endoscopy.
IRAS ID
321445
Contact name
Nigel Trudgill
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sandwell General Hospital
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
Oesophageal and gastric cancer are two of the six less survivable cancers, responsible for half of cancer deaths and a quarter of cancer cases. Six cancer charities have called for focused efforts to improve the poor outcomes for these cancers that have changed little in recent years (lesssurvivablecancers.org.uk). Improving endoscopy standards to minimise missed cancer cases will be an important contribution to improving oesophageal and gastric cancer outcomes.
Endoscopy, flexible telescopic examination of the oesophagus, stomach and duodenum, is the method of choice for diagnosing upper gastrointestinal (UGI) cancer and its main purpose is usually to exclude cancer as the cause of peoples’ symptoms. Over 1,000,000 endoscopies are undertaken each year in the UK but the test is not perfect and sometimes cancer or an abnormality that will turn into cancer is not found. When this happens, the cancer is known as a post-endoscopy UGI cancer (PEUGIC) or a ‘missed’ cancer. This is unfortunately a relatively common occurrence and 9% of people with UGI cancer in the UK (approximately 1400 per year) had an endoscopy that did not find their cancer in the three years before diagnosis.
We will examine the role of computerised Artificial Intelligence (AI) in improving endoscopy quailty. An AI endoscopy quality control tool has been developed called Cerebro (Endovision, Hong Kong). This gives the endoscopist real time feedback during an endoscopy: ensuring inspection completeness by prompting the endoscopist on which areas have not been inspected and which areas missed. We aim to study its impact on improving endoscopy inspection completeness.
All people who undergo endoscopy will benefit from this research. Reducing the future number of cancers that are missed at endoscopy in England will be a direct benefit but preventing missed cancers will also help to improve the general quality of endoscopy.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 4
REC reference
23/WS/0120
Date of REC Opinion
21 Nov 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion