Abstract: Colonoscopy is the gold standard method for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer (CRC). It detects the first clinical manifestation of CRC, known as polyps. One night prior to a colonoscopy procedure, patients are instructed to take laxative agents in order to completely cleanse the colon. This process is called bowel preparation. Contemporary sensitivity of colonoscopy for detecting polyps of a size larger than 10 mm is 98% with the limitation in detection mainly due to poor visualization related to inadequate bowel preparation. Unfortunately, there is not yet a metric (formally recommended by means of guidelines) for the quantification of bowel preparation. Scales used nowadays are not objective, because generally colonoscopists estimate the level of cleanliness after the conclusion of the colonoscopic test. This limitation leads to the formalization of the present study, which focuses on the development of a novel cleansing evaluation system for bowel preparation and the assessment of its clinical efficacy. The proposed system consists of a computer-based tool that can automatically measure the quantity of stool and waste matter existing within the patient during a colonoscopy procedure. As these metrics can be obtained automatically, the proposed method can lead to future quality control in daily medical practice. Furthermore, it can be used to create best practice standards for colonoscopy training or as part of medical skill evaluation.

Keywords: Colonoscopy; Colon preparation; Efficacy; Quality measurement metrics; Video segmentation

ACM Classification Keywords: A.0 General Literature - Conference proceedings; J.3. Life and Medical Sciences

Link:

AUTOMATED SYSTEM FOR QUANTIFYING THE LEVEL OF PREPARATION IN COLONOSCOPY

Leticia Angulo-Rodríguez?, Xuexin Gao, Dobromir Filip, Christopher N. Andrews and Martin P. Mintchev

http://www.foibg.com/ijima/vol01/ijima01-3-p03.pdf