Ainex Corporation (CEO David Lee, hereinafter "Ainex"), a specialist in artificial intelligence (AI) for gastrointestinal endoscopy, announced that it will officially supply its AI-based gastroscopy and colonoscopy image analysis software "ENAD" to H+ Yangji Hospital, located in Gwanak-gu, Seoul.

H+ Yangji Hospital is a general hospital that has led community healthcare for more than 50 years since its founding. It has accumulated a high level of expertise in the field of gastrointestinal diseases, having obtained Grade 1 in the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service's (HIRA) Quality Assessment for Gastric and Colorectal Cancer, as well as the Excellent Endoscopy Unit Certification from the Korean Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Research Foundation.

The hospital possesses extensive clinical experience, performing more than 40,000 gastroscopy and colonoscopy examinations and over 1,000 therapeutic endoscopy procedures annually. It also continues to take an active stance on adopting advanced medical technologies, achieving 500 robotic surgery cases within approximately two years of introducing the technology in May 2024.

H+ Yangji Hospital, which plays a leading role in the private general hospital sector by continuously investing in the introduction of state-of-the-art medical equipment, staff training, and clinical research to enhance the quality of care and patient satisfaction, decided to adopt ENAD in order to build a more precise endoscopy diagnostic environment.

ENAD is an AI-based Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) that detects lesions in real time during gastroscopy and colonoscopy examinations while simultaneously providing diagnostic results on lesion types. It can be used immediately by integrating with existing endoscopy equipment, and the AI—trained on an extensive collection of diverse lesion data—analyzes subtle changes and patterns to precisely detect even lesions that are easily missed by the human eye. Through this, it reduces diagnostic variability arising from differences in examiner proficiency and contributes to the overall improvement of endoscopy examination quality.

This deployment is particularly noteworthy as it marks the full-scale introduction of "ENAD CADx," an AI-based colonoscopy diagnostic support software that became the first endoscopy AI to establish a foundation for reimbursement coverage after passing the Innovative Medical Device Integrated Review in September last year.

ENAD CADx detects abnormal areas in colonoscopy images in real time and classifies and diagnoses them in real time into three pathological types—adenoma, benign polyp, and sessile serrated lesion (SSL)—thereby supporting clinicians' decision-making. Through this deployment, H+ Yangji Hospital is expected to be able to build a more advanced endoscopy diagnostic environment.

Dr. Young-Ju Jung, a gastroenterologist at H+ Yangji Hospital, said, "When using AI, it recognizes small lesions and lesions with ambiguous boundaries, as well as polyps that can be momentarily overlooked—such as those at the edge of the field of view—providing significant help in clinical settings," adding, "Rather than replacing the endoscopist, it serves as a second observer, which makes it tremendously helpful."

David Lee, CEO of Ainex, stated, "ENAD goes beyond simple lesion detection and is proving its true value in actual clinical practice as an 'AI partner' that precisely assists clinicians' clinical judgment," and added, "We will continue to validate ENAD's clinical effectiveness across diverse medical environments and support clinicians in performing more accurate and efficient endoscopy examinations, thereby contributing to the early diagnosis and prevention of gastrointestinal cancer."