National Taiwan University Hospital, Cathay General Hospital and aetherAI Develop aetherAI Endo for Real-Time Polyp Detection

National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH), Cathay General Hospital and the Taiwanese AI company aetherAI announced an artificial intelligence system to help detect polyps and tumours during colonoscopies, with 96% accuracy, the Taipei Times reported in September 2022. The aetherAI Endo system reviews colonoscopy images, performing AI inference at 30 frames per second, and sounds an alert when it detects a suspected polyp or tumour, said Hung Chih-sheng, director of Cathay General Hospital's gastroenterology division. The AI engine was trained on more than 400,000 colonoscopy images, including pre-cancerous flat polyps that are harder to detect, collected from more than 3,000 patients at the two hospitals, and Hung said the system increased the accuracy of adenoma detection by about 14 to 30%. Colorectal cancer had been the most common cancer in Taiwan for 14 consecutive years, and about 400,000 colonoscopies are performed there each year, but detection accuracy varies. NTUH gastroenterologist Chiu Han-mo cited a study suggesting that each 1% increase in adenoma detection could cut colorectal cancer incidence by 3% and mortality by 5%, and Cathay General Hospital superintendent Lee Fa-kung noted that doctors may become tired after seven or eight colonoscopies, making missed lesions more likely. Clinical trials of aetherAI Endo were being conducted at NTUH, the National Taiwan University Cancer Center, Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital, Changhua Christian Hospital and Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital.