Performance of a computer-aided diagnosis system in diagnosing early gastric cancer using magnifying endoscopy videos with narrow-band imaging (with videos)

Background and aims: The performance of magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging (ME-NBI) using a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system in diagnosing early gastric cancer (EGC) is unclear. Here, we aimed to clarify the differences in the diagnostic performance between expert endoscopists and the CAD system using ME-NBI.

Methods: The CAD system was pretrained using 1492 cancerous and 1078 noncancerous images obtained using ME-NBI. One hundred seventy-four videos (87 cancerous and 87 noncancerous videos) were used to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the CAD system using the area under the curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). For each item, comparisons were made between the CAD system and 11 experts who were skilled in diagnosing EGC using ME-NBI with clinical experience of more than 1 year at our hospital.

Results: The CAD system demonstrated an AUC of 0.8684. The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV were 85.1% (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 79.0-89.6), 87.4% (95% CI, 78.8-92.8), 82.8% (95% CI, 73.5-89.3), 83.5% (95% CI, 74.6-89.7), and 86.7% (95% CI, 77.8-92.4), respectively. The CAD system was significantly more accurate than 2 experts, significantly less accurate than 1 expert, and not significantly different from the remaining 8 experts.

Conclusions: The overall performance of the CAD system using ME-NBI videos in diagnosing EGC was considered good and was equivalent to or better than that of several experts. The CAD system may prove useful in the diagnosis of EGC in clinical practice.