Assessment of bowel cleansing quality in colon capsule endoscopy using machine learning: a pilot study

Background and study aims:  The aim of this study was to develop a machine learning-based model to classify bowel cleansing quality and to test this model in comparison to a pixel analysis model and assessments by four colon capsule endoscopy (CCE) readers.

Methods:  A pixel analysis and a machine learning-based model with four cleanliness classes (unacceptable, poor, fair and good) were developed to classify CCE videos. Cleansing assessments by four CCE readers in 41 videos from a previous study were compared to the results both models yielded in this pilot study.

Results:  The machine learning-based model classified 47 % of the videos in agreement with the averaged classification by CCE readers, as compared to 32 % by the pixel analysis model. A difference of more than one class was detected in 12 % of the videos by the machine learning-based model and in 32 % by the pixel analysis model, as the latter tended to overestimate cleansing quality. A specific analysis of unacceptable videos found that the pixel analysis model classified almost all of them as fair or good, whereas the machine learning-based model identified five out of 11 videos in agreement with at least one CCE reader as unacceptable.

Conclusions:  The machine learning-based model was superior to the pixel analysis in classifying bowel cleansing quality, due to a higher sensitivity to unacceptable and poor cleansing quality. The machine learning-based model can be further improved by coming to a consensus on how to classify cleanliness of a complete CCE video, by means of an expert panel.