February 22, 2022 – Medtronic and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy announced they are working to provide colorectal cancer screening technologies in low income and underserved communities across the United States through the Medtronic Health Equity Assistance Program for colon cancer screening, with support from Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The initiative will include the donation of 50 Medtronic GI Genius™ intelligent endoscopy modules to endoscopy centers across the country that can potentially improve the detection of polyps that can lead to colorectal cancer. Certain types of colorectal cancer, when caught early, can have a survival rate (five year) of up to 91%; however, it remains the third most common and third deadliest cancer among adults in the United States. With these placements, there is an opportunity to potentially impact more than 350,000 patients over three years.
AWS has provided computing credits that have made the funding of this program possible and continues to work with Medtronic to support the ongoing development of GI Genius™ and innovative future Medtronic health screening technologies that will further support Medtronic’s health equity efforts. ASGE is independently leading the application and selection process to determine the facilities that otherwise would be unable to fund this innovative solution for underserved patient populations. Initial recipients will be announced in March 2022 during Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
The GI Genius intelligent endoscopy module, authorized by the FDA in April 2021, detects colorectal polyps of varying shapes and sizes automatically in real time which helps diagnose and prevent colorectal cancer. It is the first-to-market, computer-aided polyp detection system powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that provides physicians with a powerful solution in the fight to screen, detect and prevent colorectal cancer and an increase of up to 14.4% absolute detection rate (ADR). Each 1% increase in ADR decreases patients’ risk of colorectal cancer by 3%.