Twinning – International Research Infrastructure for Colon Capsule Endoscopy

The main barrier for a wide implementation of CCE in daily practice is a lack of research and available data to create the appropriate work flows around CCE. Better data availability is also crucial for employing artificial intelligence algorithms to process the CCE images and clinical data for faster and more accurate diagnostics.

AIM

CCE is currently being used in clinical trials in Denmark and is being rolled out as a regular service in Scotland. The technology has a wide range of clinical applications but is relatively new in the field of colorectal cancer where it offers huge potential for improving clinical outcomes, especially fueled by advances in data analysis and algorithms. The research community in the field of CCE is still very limited and clinical data scarce.

The Twinning project aimed to improve available data sets in both Denmark and Scotland by creating a joint research infrastructure to advance the use of CCE in both countries. The infrastructure would be based on the current database from the “twinning originator”, Odense University Hospital, Denmark, to the twinning adopters, NHS Highland and the Digital Health and Care Institute, Scotland. Based on local clinical trials, the twinning sites were going to create a common database, ensuring comparability between the data collections.

By pooling data across borders, we not only provided a larger amount of data in a field with limited evidence, but we also ensured the alignment of data collection to support a better structure for and quality of the data to be used for research and innovation in the field.

The overall aim was to strengthen the scientific collaboration between the Danish and Scottish CCE research groups and enable data sharing through established research infrastructures. To achieve this goal of improving data sets, Twinning would be built on three streams of work; clinical trials in CCE, technical development (including artificial intelligence) and developing a joint research infrastructure.

PARTNERS

The Twinning partners were Odense University Hospital, Denmark, represented by both CIMT and the Department of Surgery at Svendborg Sygehus, where the colon capsule endoscopy is in use in several clinical research projects.

In Scotland, the partners were clinical staff and researchers in the NHS Highland region who have been working with colon capsule technology for a few years. The project activities were supported by the Digital Health and Care Institute, Scotland.

August 2020 marked the start of a large clinical trial called CareforColon that investigates the effectiveness of using colon capsule technology as a screening method for colon cancer. The study is based on several years of small-scale tests. The study is one of the main activities in the new Centre for Clinical Implementation of Capsule Endoscopy (CICA), a Centre of Excellence under the Region of Southern Denmark initiated by the Department of Surgery at Odense University Hospital in Svendborg. Read more about CICA.

Read about the Danish clinical trial of CCE screenings.

Read about the Scottish study on capsule endoscopies.