A New Era for Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer is the second most deadly cancer with almost 2 million cases and 900,000 deaths reported worldwide in 2020. Colorectal cancer is almost completely preventable with proper screening.

Early detection of colorectal polyps, or pre-cancerous lesions are thought to be missed up to 25% of the time during a traditional colonoscopy. Untreated pre-cancerous polyps can lead to the development of deadly malignancies. In a recent study, researchers sought to determine if using artificial intelligence during a colonoscopy could improve the detection rate of polyps in 230 study participants. The AI method was associated with a miss rate of 15.5% versus 32.4% in the standard method. The AI colonoscopy also led to the detection of smaller, flatter polyps which are often difficult to find on standard scopes.

The use of artificial intelligence to detect pre-cancerous colorectal polyps is certainly a promising area of study and is sure to save lives across the world!

-Josee