Early detection of early-stage esophageal cancer (ECA) is crucial for timely intervention and improved treatment outcomes. Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies offer promising avenues for enhancing diagnostic accuracy in this context. This study utilized a dataset comprising 3984 white light images (WLIs) and 3666 narrow-band images (NBIs). We employed the Yolov5 model, a state-of-the-art object detection algorithm, to predict early ECA based on the provided images. The dataset was divided into two subsets: RGB-WLIs and NBIs, and four distinct models were trained using these datasets. The experimental results revealed that the prediction performance of the training model was notably enhanced when using HSI compared to general NBI training. The HSI training model demonstrated an 8% improvement in accuracy, along with a 5-8% enhancement in precision and recall measures. Notably, the model trained with WLIs exhibited the most significant improvement. Integration of HSI with AI technologies improves the prediction performance for early ECA detection. This study underscores the potential of deep learning identification models to aid in medical detection research. Integrating these models with endoscopic diagnostic systems in healthcare settings could offer faster and more accurate results, thereby improving overall detection performance.
Keywords: YOLOv5; esophageal cancer; hyperspectral imaging; object recognition; squamous esophageal carcinoma.