Deep Learning Model for Histologic Diagnosis of Dysplastic Barrett's Esophagus: Multisite Cohort External Validation

The risk of progression to esophageal adenocarcinoma in Barrett's esophagus (BE) increases with advancing degrees of dysplasia. There is a critical need to improve the diagnosis of BE dysplasia, given substantial interobserver variability and overcalls of dysplasia during manual community pathologist reads. We aimed to externally validate a previously cross-validated BE dysplasia diagnosis deep learning model (BEDDLM) that predicts dysplasia grade on whole slide images (WSIs).

We digitized nondysplastic BE (NDBE), low-grade (LGD), and high-grade dysplasia (HGD) histology slides from 3 external academic centers. A consensus read by 2 expert study pathologists was used as the criterion standard. Slide stain characteristics were normalized using cycle-generative adversarial networks. WSIs were assessed by BEDDLM using an ensemble approach, combining a "You Only Look Once" model followed by a ResNet101 classifier model.

We included 489 WSIs. Consensus histopathology revealed 232 NDBE, 117 LGD, and 140 HGD WSIs. The mean age (SD) was 66.9 (11.4) years; 413 (84.7%) were men. Using the BEDDLM ensemble model, sensitivity and specificity for NDBE were 73.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 67.09%-78.85%) and 93.4% (95% CI: 89.62%-96.10%); for LGD, 84.6% (95% CI: 76.78%-90.62%) and 80.6% (95% CI: 76.26%-84.54%); and for HGD, 80.7% (95% CI: 73.19%-86.89%) and 94.8% (95% CI: 91.97%-96.91%), respectively. The F1 score was 0.81, 0 0.69, and 0.83 for NDBE, LGD, and HGD, respectively.

Our externally validated deep learning model demonstrates substantial accuracy for the diagnosis of BE dysplasia grade on WSIs.