Real-time artificial intelligence for detecting focal lesions and diagnosing neoplasms of the stomach by white-light endoscopy (with videos)

Background and Aims: White-light endoscopy (WLE) is the most pivotal tool to detect gastric cancer in an early stage. However, the skill among endoscopists varies greatly. Here, we aim to develop a deep learning-based system named ENDOANGEL-LD (lesion detection) to assist in detecting all focal gastric lesions and predicting neoplasms by WLE. Methods: Endoscopic images were retrospectively obtained from Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University (RHWU) for the development, validation, and internal test of the system. Additional external tests were conducted in 5 other hospitals to evaluate the robustness. Stored videos from RHWU were used for assessing and comparing the performance of ENDOANGEL-LD with that of experts. Prospective consecutive patients undergoing upper endoscopy were enrolled from May 6, 2021 to August 2, 2021 in RHWU to assess clinical practice applicability. Results: Over 10,000 patients undergoing upper endoscopy were enrolled in this study. The sensitivities were 96.9% and 95.6% for detecting gastric lesions and 92.9% and 91.7% for diagnosing neoplasms in internal and external patients, respectively. In 100 videos, ENDOANGEL-LD achieved superior sensitivity and negative predictive value for detecting gastric neoplasms from that of experts (100% vs 85.5% +/- 3.4% [P = .003] and 100% vs 86.4% +/- 2.8% [P = .002], respectively). In 2010 prospective consecutive patients, ENDOANGEL-LD achieved a sensitivity of 92.8% for detecting gastric lesions with 3.04 +/- 3.04 false positives per gastroscopy and a sensitivity of 91.8% and specificity of 92.4% for diagnosing neoplasms. Conclusions: Our results show that ENDOANGEL-LD has great potential for assisting endoscopists in screening gastric lesions and suspicious neoplasms in clinical work.

Automated summary

This study developed a deep learning-based system called ENDOANGEL-LD to assist in detecting gastric lesions and predicting neoplasms. The results showed that the system has great potential for improving the screening ability of endoscopists in clinical work.