A new study tested whether artificial intelligence could help trainee doctors find more polyps during colonoscopy. The study involved 16 gastroenterology fellows who performed 1,045 colonoscopies. Some procedures used AI-enhanced colonoscopy, while others used conventional colonoscopy. The researchers measured how often doctors detected adenomas, which are precancerous polyps.
Overall, the AI did not significantly improve the adenoma detection rate. However, when looking at the right side of the colon, AI helped fellows find more polyps. In screening colonoscopies, the AI group detected adenomas in 49.1% of cases compared to 26.7% in the conventional group. The right-sided adenoma detection rate also improved with AI.
The study did not report any safety concerns or differences in procedure time. The main limitation is that the role of AI in training settings is not yet fully defined. This was a pragmatic trial, meaning it was done in real-world conditions.
For now, these results suggest AI may help trainee doctors improve detection of polyps in the right colon, which is often harder to examine. More research is needed to confirm these findings and understand how best to use AI in training.