Smart toilet AI system developed to help people with gastrointestinal issues

An image analysis system that turns ordinary lavatories into smart stool inspection devices can help people suffering gastrointestinal issues to manage their conditions and potentially diagnose new issues before they worsen, new research suggests.

Researchers at Duke University in the US attached a minute endoscopic camera typically used for surgery to pipes in existing toilets. The camera takes a picture of the person’s stools after they flush, which the Artificial Intelligence (AI) analyses to track their bowel health and habits.

Such smart toilets could help people living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) to better understand their conditions and manage their own care, according to research the team will present during medical conference Digestive Disease Week.

“As an appliance, the toilet hasn’t really changed since the introduction of the flush toilet in the late 1890s,” Sonia Grego, a lead researcher on the study and founding director of the Duke Smart Toilet Lab, told i.

“We think our technology will be really beneficial to users and to GI (gastrointestinal) doctors, particularly for people living in long-term care facilities, as the elderly are disproportionately affected by GI disturbances and conditions such as constipation can really impact their quality of life.”

The AI system was trained using 3,328 images of stools either submitted by research participants or readily available on the internet. Gastroenterologists then reviewed and labelled the images using the Bristol Stool Chart, a diagnostic scale of stool consistency ranging from 1 (constipation) and 7 (diarrhoea), teaching the algorithm to accurately classify stools 85.1 per cent of the time and detecting the presence of blood with 76.3 per cent accuracy.

Consequently, it could diagnose IBD flare-ups and help a patient to assess whether certain types of treatment were effective or not.

While the tool is not yet available to the public, the researchers are optimistic it could go on sale in the future via the University’s Coprata start-up. The team is currently working on a stool sampling feature to collect disease data and conduct on-site biochemical analysis for more accurate and efficient disease diagnosis.

“We can envision this system revolutionising the way chronic GI diseases are tracked because people are currently keeping track using paper diaries or apps,” Ms Grego said.

“We understand the discomfort of having to go to the bathroom, wash your hands, deciding whether to take a picture or not, then having to enter your impression of the consistency into the app. Our automated system means you don’t have to do that.”