It was an ordinary day. Reading a story about Cancer Breakthrough: AI-Assisted Colonoscopies. Story read: John Lloyd put off colon cancer screening for years. When he finally had his first colonoscopy, at age 56, it found a tumor the size of a lemon. "I was lucky," he says. "It was stage 3 cancer that hadn't spread beyond some lymph nodes." Chemotherapy, radiation and surgery wiped out his cancer. Now Lloyd, 72, president of an electrical contracting firm in Durham, North Carolina, gets colonoscopies every three years. But, his most recent colonoscopy came with a sign-tech twist: artificial intelligence to help spot polyps that can become cancers. "It's like having another set of eyes," says Neeraj Sachdevaa, M.D., of RMG Gastroenterology in Raliegh, North Carolina. "It allows you to do a more meticulous exam." A traditional colonoscopy relies on the eyes of the doctor, yet some types of abnormal growths in the colon can be hard to spot. GI Genius from Medtronid, the first AI-asisted colonoscopy system available in the the U.S., got FDA marketing authorization in 2021; others are coming out. The computer-aided system swiftly analyzes in real time the high-definition video images from a doctor's endoscope (the tiny camera used to examine the interior walls of the colon during a colonoscopy). Potential trouble spots are highlighted in a green-edged box on the monitor viewed by the doctor. It's estimated that in 2024, 152,810 people in the U.S. willl be diagnosed with colorectal cancer; 53,010 will die, according to the American Cancer Society. Colonoscopy lowers cancer risk by finding precancels and removing them, Sachdeva says. AI has made colonoscopies even more accurate: In one study, the technology boosted the discovery of growths from 33 to 42 percent by doctors who were considered experts at performing colonoscopies and analyzing results, finding early cancers and reducing the rate of future tumors. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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