Yu, Honggang

The number of artificial intelligence (AI) tools for colonoscopy on the market is increasing with supporting clinical evidence. Nevertheless, their implementation is not going smoothly for a variety of reasons, including lack of data on clinical benefits and cost‐effectiveness, lack of trustworthy guidelines, uncertain indications, and cost for implementation. To address this issue and better guide practitioners, the World Endoscopy Organization (WEO) has provided its perspective about the status of AI in colonoscopy as the position statement. WEO Position Statement: Statement 1.1: Computer‐aided detection (CADe) for colorectal polyps is likely to improve colonoscopy effectiveness by reducing adenoma miss rates and thus increase adenoma detection; Statement 1.2: In the short term, use of CADe is likely to increase health‐care costs by detecting more adenomas; Statement 1.3: In the long term, the increased cost by CADe could be balanced by savings in costs related to cancer treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, palliative care) due to CADe‐related cancer prevention; Statement 1.4: Health‐care delivery systems and authorities should evaluate the cost‐effectiveness of CADe to support its use in clinical practice; Statement 2.1: Computer‐aided diagnosis (CADx) for diminutive polyps (≤5 mm), when it has sufficient accuracy, is expected to reduce health‐care costs by reducing polypectomies, pathological examinations, or both; Statement 2.2: Health‐care delivery systems and authorities should evaluate the cost‐effectiveness of CADx to support its use in clinical practice; Statement 3: We recommend that a broad range of high‐quality cost‐effectiveness research should be undertaken to understand whether AI implementation benefits populations and societies in different health‐care systems.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on provision of endoscopy services globally as staff and real estate were repurposed. As we begin to recover from the pandemic, a cohesive international approach is needed, and guidance on how to resume endoscopy services safely to avoid unintended harm from diagnostic delays. The aim of these guidelines is to provide consensus recommendations that clinicians can use to facilitate the swift and safe resumption of endoscopy services. An evidence-based literature review was carried out on the various strategies used globally to manage endoscopy during the COVID-19 pandemic and control infection. A modified Delphi process involving international endoscopy experts was used to agree on the consensus statements. A threshold of 80% agreement was used to establish consensus for each statement. 27 of 30 statements achieved consensus after two rounds of voting by 34 experts. The statements were categorised as pre-endoscopy, during endoscopy and postendoscopy addressing relevant areas of practice, such as screening, personal protective equipment, appropriate environments for endoscopy and infection control precautions, particularly in areas of high disease prevalence. Recommendations for testing of patients and for healthcare workers, appropriate locations of donning and doffing areas and social distancing measures before endoscopy are unique and not dealt with by any other guidelines. This international consensus using a modified Delphi method to produce a series of best practice recommendations to aid the safe resumption of endoscopy services globally in the era of COVID-19.