Computer aided villi morphometric quantification in video-capsule enteroscopy: A newly developed software to quantify...

Area of Science:

• Gastroenterology
• Medical Imaging
• Computational Pathology

Background:

• Small bowel capsule endoscopy (SBCE) is used for non-responsive celiac disease (CeD).
• A quantitative, non-invasive method to assess small bowel atrophy is needed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel software tool for quantifying villous atrophy using SBCE.
• To assess the accuracy of this tool in differentiating atrophic from non-atrophic mucosa.

Main Methods:

• SBCE frames from CeD patients (2018-2020) were analyzed.
• Regions of interest were selected and processed using NIH image-processing software.
• A 3D surface plot macro quantified intestinal villi density.

Main Results:

• The software differentiated atrophic from non-atrophic mucosa with 77% sensitivity and 79% specificity.
• A significant difference in median density score was observed between atrophic and non-atrophic frames (p < 0.001).
• The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.805.

Conclusions:

• The developed SBCE software effectively quantifies villous atrophy.
• Further validation in external cohorts is required to confirm applicability.