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Artif Intell Cancer. Apr 28, 2022; 3(2): 17-26
Published online Apr 28, 2022. doi: 10.35713/aic.v3.i2.17
Usefulness of artificial intelligence in early gastric cancer
Alba Panarese
Alba Panarese, Department of Gastroenterology and Endoscopy, Central Hospital, Taranto 74123, Italy
Author contributions: Panarese A conceived, designed, wrote, and revised the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with the author.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Alba Panarese, MD, Director, Department of Gastroenterology and Endoscopy, Central Hospital, Bruno Street, 1, Taranto 74123, Italy. albapanarese@libero.it
Received: December 31, 2021
Peer-review started: December 31, 2021
First decision: March 12, 2022
Revised: March 27, 2022
Accepted: April 20, 2022
Article in press: April 20, 2022
Published online: April 28, 2022
Processing time: 118 Days and 4.3 Hours
Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) is a major cancer worldwide, with high mortality and morbidity. Endoscopy, important for the early detection of GC, requires trained skills, high-quality technologies, surveillance and screening programs. Early diagnosis allows a better prognosis, through surgical or curative endoscopic therapy. Magnified endoscopy with virtual chromoendoscopy remarkably improve the detection of early gastric cancer (EGC) when endoscopy is performed by expert endoscopists. Artificial intelligence (AI) has also been introduced to GC diagnostics to increase diagnostic efficiency. AI improves the early detection of gastric lesions because it supports the non-expert and experienced endoscopist in defining the margins of the tumor and the depth of infiltration. AI increases the detection rate of EGC, reduces the rate of missing tumors, and characterizes EGCs, allowing clinicians to make the best therapeutic decision, that is, one that ensures curability. AI has had a remarkable evolution in medicine in recent years, moving from the research phase to clinical practice. In addition, the diagnosis of GC has markedly progressed. We predict that AI will allow great evolution in the diagnosis and treatment of EGC by overcoming the variability in performance that is currently a limitation of chromoendoscopy.

Keywords: Early gastric cancer; Artificial intelligence; Helicobacter pylori; Endoscopic submucosal dissection; Dysplasia; Computer-aided; Detection

Core Tip: Early diagnosis and treatment of gastric cancer (GC) can benefit from the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into endoscopic diagnostics of the upper digestive tract. AI improves endoscopic diagnosis because it overcomes the difficulty of diagnosis linked to the experience of the endoscopist. Improving endoscopic diagnosis will allow for better treatment, which is more likely to be curative, with submucosal endoscopic dissection or surgery. However, because research advances in this area continue to be rapid, prospective multicenter studies are needed on the application of AI to the diagnosis of early GC.