AI Advances Colon Cancer Detection
- A new piece of AI, the “GI Genius,” has shown promise in detecting colon cancer.
- Colon cancer is typically screened for via colonoscopy.
- While the AI won’t be replacing clinicians, it is a good additional screening measure.
A typical colonoscopy involves using a camera to find things like polyps, diverticula, and cancers in the colon. And new technology, “GI Genius,” uses artificial intelligence to help doctors identify these things more accurately. It is “the first device that uses artificial intelligence (AI) based on machine learning to assist clinicians in detecting lesions (such as polyps or suspected tumors) in the colon in real-time during a colonoscopy,” reports the FDA. “The GI Genius is composed of hardware and software designed to highlight portions of the colon where the device detects a potential lesion. The software uses artificial intelligence algorithm techniques to identify regions of interest.”
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She says that with the new technology, GI Genius, “They [researchers in the US and the UK] picked up slightly more polyps.”
Dr. Yeo notes how it examines images from the colon to an even greater degree and puts them against different algorithms to determine if it’s normal or abnormal.
Related: Getting Cleaned Out for a Colonoscopy
She says, “During a typical colonoscopy, what happens is there’s a special instrument. It’s a long tube with a camera on the end and some working ports and that is used with lighting to go through the entire colon and to look for abnormal findings. What happens when you link that with the GI Genius is it takes the images that the physicians are already seeing and it runs it against different algorithms to say: is this a normal thing or an abnormal thing?”
While GI Genius won’t be replacing doctors or clinicians, Dr. Yeo says the advancement is nonetheless exciting. “The GI Genius seems to, in these early trials, be picking up on potential tumors that may have been missed by clinicians. So, yes, that’s certainly exciting. I don’t think it’s a replacement; I don’t think it’s quite ready to take over doing a full colonoscopy. But I think the potential of AI and the future of AI is real. And as a physician, anytime there’s a chance that I’m going to be picking up on more cancers, I think that’s exciting for my patients.”
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