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Artif Intell Gastroenterol. Nov 28, 2020; 1(4): 60-70
Published online Nov 28, 2020. doi: 10.35712/aig.v1.i4.60
Artificial intelligence: A new budding star in gastric cancer
Wen-An Wang, Peng Dong, An Zhang, Wen-Jie Wang, Chang-An Guo, Jing Wang, Hong-Bin Liu
Wen-An Wang, An Zhang, Jing Wang, Graduate School, Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China
Wen-An Wang, An Zhang, Jing Wang, Hong-Bin Liu, Department of General Surgery, The 940th Hospital of Joint Logistics Support Force of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Lanzhou 730050, Gansu Province, China
Peng Dong, Wen-Jie Wang, Department of General Surgery, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China
Chang-An Guo, Department of Emergency Medicine, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China
Author contributions: Wang WA and Liu HB contributed to the conceptualization of this study; Wang WA, Wang WJ, and Guo CA contributed to the methodology; Wang WA, Dong P, Zhang A, and Wang J contributed to the investigation; Wang WA and Wang WJ contributed to the data classification; Wang WA wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare having no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hong-Bin Liu, MD, PhD, Chief Doctor, Director, Postdoc, Professor, Surgeon, Surgical Oncologist, Department of General Surgery, The 940th Hospital of Joint Logistics Support Force of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, No. 333 Binhe South Road, Lanzhou 730050, Gansu Province, China. liuhongbin999@163.com
Received: June 30, 2020
Peer-review started: June 30, 2020
First decision: September 14, 2020
Revised: October 15, 2020
Accepted: November 28, 2020
Article in press: November 28, 2020
Published online: November 28, 2020
Abstract

The pursuit of health has always been the driving force for the advancement of human society, and social development will be profoundly affected by every breakthrough in the medical industry. With the arrival of the information technology revolution era, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has been rapidly developed. AI has been combined with medicine but it has been less studied with gastric cancer (GC). AI is a new budding star in GC, and its contribution to GC is mainly focused on diagnosis and treatment. For early GC, AI’s impact is not only reflected in its high accuracy but also its ability to quickly train primary doctors, improve the diagnosis rate of early GC, and reduce missed cases. At the same time, it will also reduce the possibility of missed diagnosis of advanced GC in cardia. Furthermore, it is used to assist imaging doctors to determine the location of lymph nodes and, more importantly, it can more effectively judge the lymph node metastasis of GC, which is conducive to the prognosis of patients. In surgical treatment of GC, it also has great potential. Robotic surgery is the latest technology in GC surgery. It is a bright star for minimally invasive treatment of GC, and together with laparoscopic surgery, it has become a common treatment for GC. Through machine learning, robotic systems can reduce operator errors and trauma of patients, and can predict the prognosis of GC patients. Throughout the centuries of development of surgery, the history gradually changes from traumatic to minimally invasive. In the future, AI will help GC patients reduce surgical trauma and further improve the efficiency of minimally invasive treatment of GC.

Keywords: Gastric cancer, Artificial intelligence, Gastroscopy, Lymph node, Robotic surgery, Minimally invasive

Core Tip: Artificial intelligence (AI) is an important part of the information technology revolution. AI can be used in the following three aspects: (1) Gastroscopy for gastric cancer (GC) can improve the diagnostic accuracy of early GC and reduce the missed diagnosis of atypical parts of advanced GC; (2) Imaging doctor determination of the location of the lymph nodes. More importantly, it can more effectively determine lymph node metastasis of GC; and (3) Improving robotic surgical systems and further reducing patient injuries, by advancing from minimally invasive to nearly non-invasive surgery.