SME of the Week: Odin Vision

In recognition of World Cancer Day, Luke Sampson, Quality and Operations Manager for Accelerator company and SME of the Week Odin Vision, shares how they are using AI to support early detection of colorectal cancer.

In the UK, there are over 42,000 new cases of colorectal cancer (CRC) and 16,000 deaths per year, making it the second leading cause of cancer deaths. The number of CRC related deaths is predicted to increase by 51% over the next 15 years, with increased prevalence in young people.

Challenges in Colonoscopy:

  • Polyp Detection: Polyps are abnormal tissue growths which can develop in the colon or rectum, and adenomas are a type of polyp which may eventually become cancerous. Up to 25% of adenomas are missed during colonoscopy, with each 1.0% increase in the adenoma detection rate correlating to a 3.0% decrease in the risk of interval cancer.
  • Polyp Diagnosis: Only 3% of NHS histopathology departments have enough staff to meet clinical demand. As demand increases, this will lead to longer waiting times for results.
  • Colonoscopy Quality: 70% of post colonoscopy colorectal cancers have avoidable factors including poor bowel preparation and not reaching the end of the bowel (caecum) before inspection begins.

CADDIE is Odin Vision’s cutting-edge AI solution for colonoscopy. It supports endoscopists to detect and characterise cancerous/pre-cancerous polyps during colonoscopy procedures. The use of AI has the potential to improve the early the detection of cancer leading to better patient outcomes and reduced healthcare cost.

CADDIE streams the endoscopy video feed from the hospital to the cloud, analyses the images and instantly returns information to the doctor to support decision making during the procedure. CADDIE provides information on the location of a polyp in the endoscopy image and information about the visual characteristics of the tissue that can assist the doctor to make a diagnosis. CADDIE also has AI features related to bowel preparation scoring and identification of critical anatomical structure in the caecum.

Like most companies, the global pandemic has required us to adapt. We quickly moved to remote working but had to rethink the way we collaborated with doctors. Our CADDIE system is cloud based and this has proved to be a huge advantage. We can get feedback on user interface design from doctors working at home and deploy our system into hospitals without setting foot inside.

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on endoscopy services, resulting in a substantial backlog of patients waiting for cancer screening. The NHS will aim to recruit and train more endoscopists but it takes decades to achieve expert level performance. We are very excited that CADDIE is being assessed by UCLH in a multi-centre randomized clinical trial to evaluate how much it can improve the performance of less experienced endoscopists.  We hope that CADDIE can become an important tool in the recovery of cancer services post COVID.

Alongside this, Odin are about to launch another medical device focusing on Upper GI endoscopy.

If you are interested in talking to us about our AI systems, how we have adapted to remote working or are interested in working with us on research, development and deployment of AI solutions in endoscopy please contact us at info@odin-vision.com or go to odin-vision.com for a free trial.


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Odin Vision is currently one of 20 digital health companies on the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator programme.

The DigitalHealth.London Accelerator is a collaborative programme funded by London’s three Academic Health Science Networks – UCL Partners, Imperial College Health Partners, and the Health Innovation Network, MedCity, CW+ and receives match funding from the European Regional Development Fund.