Detection of laryngeal carcinoma during endoscopy using artificial intelligence

Background: The objective of this study was to assess the performance and application of a self-developed deep learning (DL) algorithm for the real-time localization and classification of both vocal cord carcinoma and benign vocal cord lesions.

Methods: The algorithm was trained and validated upon a dataset of videos and photos collected from our own department, as well as an open-access dataset named "Laryngoscope8".

Results: The algorithm correctly localizes and classifies vocal cord carcinoma on still images with a sensitivity between 71% and 78% and benign vocal cord lesions with a sensitivity between 70% and 82%. Furthermore, the best algorithm had an average frame per second rate of 63, thus making it suitable to use in an outpatient clinic setting for real-time detection of laryngeal pathology.

Conclusion: We have demonstrated that our developed DL algorithm is able to localize and classify benign and malignant laryngeal pathology during endoscopy.