ABSTRACT: Colorectal cancer is the 2nd most common cause of death by cancer. Screening is therefore essential, with a positive impact for prevention, and in the visualization and removal of colonic adenomas, pre-cancerous lesions of colorectal cancer.
The colonic adenoma detection rate (CADR), the gold standard for colonoscopy screening and screening studies, is the ratio of the number of colonoscopies with at least one histologically verified colonic adenoma to the total number of colonoscopies performed in a center. It varies between 25 and 45% depending on the center. There is a large inter-operator CADR variability, which has been linked to an increased incidence and excess mortality in colorectal cancers.
To improve this detection rate, several innovative techniques have been developed:
The endoscopic cap helps improve this detection rate: it is a 2cm tip with double row of plastic wings, fixed to the distal end of the colonoscope, which acts by unfolding the colonic haustrations allowing a better visualization of adenomas, and more particularly those of sessile morphology and sigmoidal location. Several multicenter studies have shown an improvement in the adenoma detection rate with this device compared to screening colonoscopy alone, with an adenoma detection rate optimization of 14%. Since then other devices, such as the Endocuff, have emerged with comparable efficacy. The Medtronic© GI GENIUS system integrates artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in the detection of polyps. It automatically identifies these precancerous lesions in real time.
The study investigators previously performed a retrospective pilot study (COLODETECT), comparing colonoscopy alone as a control group, against AI alone and against the combined cap + AI. This study showed encouraging results in terms of colonic adenoma detection rate (60% for the AI + cap group versus 37% for the AI alone group versus 33% for the colonoscopy alone group, p=0.037) However, it requires a higher level of evidence to be validated in practice. This prospective COLODETECT2 study estimated an a priori expected difference between A.I. - Cap and A.I. alone of about 15% CADR.
The GI GENIUS artificial intelligence system and the ENDOCUFF VISION endoscopic cap have separately proven their effectiveness in terms of colonic adenoma detection compared to colonoscopy alone. However, some limitations remain: existence of false positives (mucosal folds, residues), some morphological types still difficult to recognize (scalloped adenomas), non visualized colonic lesions.
This study therefore focuses on the possible complementarity of these 2 medical devices, in order to maximize the detection rate of colonic adenomas, and thus overcome the limitations of these two techniques by optimizing the visualization of these precancerous lesions, and consequently increasing the impact of colorectal cancer screening.
The study authors hypothesize that the combination of GI GENIUS AI coupled with the ENDOCUFF VISION endoscopy cap provides a better colonic adenoma detection rate (CAD) during colonoscopy than either GI GENIUS AI alone or the ENDOCUFF VISION cap alone.
