Automated software-assisted diagnosis of esophageal squamous cell neoplasia using high-resolution microendoscopy.

Background And Aims: High-resolution microendoscopy (HRME) is an optical biopsy technology that provides subcellular imaging of esophageal mucosa but requires expert interpretation of these histopathology-like images. We compared endoscopists with an automated software algorithm for detection of esophageal squamous cell neoplasia (ESCN) and evaluated the endoscopists' accuracy with and without input from the software algorithm.

Methods: Thirteen endoscopists (6 experts, 7 novices) were trained and tested on 218 post-hoc HRME images from 130 consecutive patients undergoing ESCN screening/surveillance.