B Walter

Improving patient information – are the new media already requested? – A questionnaire study at a gastroenterology outpatient clinic

Background Information provided for patients is an essential factor for communication between patients and health-care professionals. To analyze the most used sources of medical information and requested media for patient information, a questionnaire study was initiated. Methods A single-center questionnaire study at an outpatient clinic at a tertiary care hospital. Two hundred participating patients, average age 54.4 years (1:1.5 m:f). Results were displayed in total and as count per participant (i. e., how often is a medium mentioned per participant). Results As a source for general information, printed media are mentioned 112 times (0.56 counts per participant), the Internet 125 (0.62), and television 124 (0.62). As a source for medical information, printed media were mentioned 84 times (0.42) and the Internet 133 (0.67). As the most requested source for additional patient information, printed media were mentioned 105 times (0.53) and medical apps 63 (0.32). Conclusion A majority of our patients regularly use the Internet for medical information. Paper-print media are still highly requested by patients. New media are more often requested in younger patients but still reach the ages for screening programs and therefore offer big opportunities towards patient-doctor communication. By a good mixture of media provided a higher patient satisfaction and adherence could be ensured by the health-care professionals.

Robust Image Descriptors for Real-Time Inter-Examination Retargeting in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

For early diagnosis of malignancies in the gastrointestinal tract, surveillance endoscopy is increasingly used to monitor abnormal tissue changes in serial examinations of the same patient. Despite successes with optical biopsy for in vivo and in situ tissue characterisation, biopsy retargeting for serial examinations is challenging because tissue may change in appearance between examinations. In this paper, we propose an inter-examination retargeting framework for optical biopsy, based on an image descriptor designed for matching between endoscopic scenes over significant time intervals. Each scene is described by a hierarchy of regional intensity comparisons at various scales, offering tolerance to long-term change in tissue appearance whilst remaining discriminative. Binary coding is then used to compress the descriptor via a novel random forests approach, providing fast comparisons in Hamming space and real-time retargeting. Extensive validation conducted on 13 in vivo gastrointestinal videos, collected from six patients, show that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods.

An image retrieval framework for real-time endoscopic image retargeting

PurposeSerial endoscopic examinations of a patient are important for early diagnosis of malignancies in the gastrointestinal tract. However, retargeting for optical biopsy is challenging due to extensive tissue variations between examinations, requiring the method to be tolerant to these changes whilst enabling real-time retargeting.MethodThis work presents an image retrieval framework for inter-examination retargeting. We propose both a novel image descriptor tolerant of long-term tissue changes and a novel descriptor matching method in real time. The descriptor is based on histograms generated from regional intensity comparisons over multiple scales, offering stability over long-term appearance changes at the higher levels, whilst remaining discriminative at the lower levels. The matching method then learns a hashing function using random forests, to compress the string and allow for fast image comparison by a simple Hamming distance metric.ResultsA dataset that contains 13 in vivo gastrointestinal videos was collected from six patients, representing serial examinations of each patient, which includes videos captured with significant time intervals. Precision-recall for retargeting shows that our new descriptor outperforms a number of alternative descriptors, whilst our hashing method outperforms a number of alternative hashing approaches.ConclusionWe have proposed a novel framework for optical biopsy in serial endoscopic examinations. A new descriptor, combined with a novel hashing method, achieves state-of-the-art retargeting, with validation on in vivo videos from six patients. Real-time performance also allows for practical integration without disturbing the existing clinical workflow.

A 3D-printed cap with sideoptics for colonoscopy: a randomized ex vivo study

Background Adequate polyp detection is crucial to colonoscopy; however, detection can be impaired. In particular, flat polyps located behind folds or near the colonic flexures appear to be a problem. We present a cheap and easily adjustable 3D-printed tool to enhance the view of a standard colonoscope using additional commercially available sideoptics. Materials and methods A cap adjustable to a standard endoscope was printed by a 3 D printer and had two microcameras fixed to offer two additional views. Fourteen endoscopists performed one standard and one sideoptic-enhanced colonoscopy in a randomized order. Flat lesions were simulated in an endoscopy training model. Time for withdrawal was measured, along with the number of flat lesions detected. Results Withdrawal time did not differ significantly between standard and sideoptic-enhanced colonoscopy (329 vs. 389 seconds). The median number of detected flat lesions per endoscopic examination was significantly higher using the sideoptic tool (8 vs. 6.5; P = 0.001). Conclusions A 3D-printed sideoptic-enhanced cap including two microcameras may be a cheap, easy, and feasible add-on to improve adenoma detection rates in routine colonoscopy.