Digital-Rapid On-site Examination in Endobronchial Ultrasound-Guided Transbronchial Needle Aspiration (DEBUT): a proof of concept study for the application of artificial intelligence in the bronchoscopy suite
Shahir Asfahan, Poonam Elhence, Naveen Dutt, Ram Niwas Jalandra, Nishant Kumar Chauhan
Abstract
Endobronchial ultrasound guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) has become the standard of care for sampling mediastinal and hilar lesions and is finding increased acceptance for diagnostic as well as staging purposes [1]. EBUS-TBNA is an expensive procedure due to the high cost of equipment [2]. A repeat procedure in case of an inconclusive outcome adds to the burgeoning expenditure. To circumvent this, rapid on-site examination (ROSE) has been adopted to reduce the number of needle punctures and decrease the requirement for additional procedures [3]. However, ROSE requires presence of a pathologist or cyto-technicians in the bronchoscopy suite. Artificial intelligence using open source deep neural network is able to classify on-site cytology smears during EBUS-TBNA procedure in the bronchoscopy suite <https://bit.ly/3vcRYX1>