Sanford Health Fargo has added one more method for early detection for colon cancer – artificial intelligence.
Dr. John Bassett is a gastroenterologist at Sanford Health. He says the facility is the first in North Dakota to use Medtronic GI Genius, an AI-assisted colonoscopy, to detect colon cancer.
"It is actually, comparing what you're seeing, to a bank of 13 million different polyps. And when it sees something that it feels is a polyp, it draws a green box around that polyp, and then the endoscopist can focus on that area and make a determination whether they agree or disagree that in fact that it is a polyp."
Colorectal cancer is currently the third leading cause of cancer related deaths in the country, with more than 150,000 new cases diagnosed every year. March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month. Bassett says early detection can improve outcomes for colorectal cancer, and yearly screenings are now recommended for everyone aged 45 and over regardless of family history.
According to the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Society, the GI Genius module was shown to decrease the miss rate of adenomas and polyps by just under 46 percent.