Computerized image analysis of blood vessels within mucosal defects for the prediction of delayed bleeding following...

BACKGROUND : Clinically significant post-endoscopic bleeding (CSPEB) is a common complication following colonic endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR). Current prediction tools are clinical and do not use the appearance of the post-EMR mucosal defect. We aimed to predict CSPEB by analyzing blood vessel morphology within the post-EMR mucosal defect. METHODS : 43 patients with CSPEB were matched to 43 non-bleeders for clinical variables associated with CSPEB. Computerized image analysis quantified the morphologic characteristics of the blood vessels in the defect. Variables were measured in relation to the mucosal defect area. Multivariate analysis and a neural network (NNET) were used as prediction models. RESULTS : The CSPEB group vessels had larger maximum diameter (113.07 vs. 69.03; P < 0.001), larger minimum radius (5.09 vs. 3.28; P = 0.002), larger perimeter value (337.82 vs. 193.86; P < 0.001), larger vessel length-of-outline (351.83 vs. 220.68; P = 0.002), and larger fractal dimension (1.11 vs. 1.10; P = 0.005) compared with non-bleeders. Discriminant analysis yielded 86 % sensitivity and 76.7 % specificity and an NNET classifier yielded 100 % sensitivity and 76.9 % specificity for identifying patients at risk. CONCLUSIONS : Blood vessel morphology in the post-EMR defect can be used to predict bleeding following colonic EMR.