individuals who have been diagnosed or are suspected to have Clinical Stage III-IV Ovarian Cancer and CT and MRI have most commonly been used to identify sites and amounts of tumors in the abdomen and can help determine if these tumors can be safely removed by surgery. However, these imaging methods are only a prediction, and sometimes a diagnostic laparoscopy (putting a camera in the abdomen to look at all sites of disease) is performed to help this decision process.

With the introduction of artificial intelligence and machine learning, there is a possibility to create more precise prediction models using images from these diagnostic laparoscopy videos. In particular, it would like to use images from the diagnostic laparoscopy to create machine-learning models to help predict if the tumors can be successfully taken out at primary surgery, or if chemotherapy before surgery would be needed. During surgery time the surgical team takes images however, what makes this different is that these images will be used to help create an algorithm to predict surgical outcomes. These images will be stored in a secure database with an anonymous number not linking these pictures to any of the participants.

The Fagotti score, also known as the Predictive Index Value (PIV), is determined through the evaluation of six abdominal areas during laparoscopic exploration. These areas include the parietal peritoneum, diaphragm, greater omentum, bowel, stomach/spleen/lesser omentum, and liver. A score of 2 is assigned to each area with visible tumor spread, allowing for a maximum score of 14. Notably, a PIV score of 10 or higher signifies a threshold for triaging patients toward neoadjuvant chemotherapy. To create a predictive model for cytoreduction outcomes during diagnostic laparoscopy, advanced deep neural networks will be trained. This aims to automate PIV score assessment using a fully supervised approach and deduce features from images obtained during diagnostic laparoscopy to predict the possibility of a resection target above 1 cm or a lack of indication for cytoreductive surgery in a weekly supervised manner.

The laparoscopic evaluation also demonstrated its efficacy in foreseeing surgical outcomes for patients undergoing interval cytoreductive surgery post neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT). However, this model remains vulnerable to the subjectivity inherent in each surgeon's evaluation of individual disease sites. Evaluating patients during intraoperative procedures during diagnostic laparoscopy often relies on a surgeon's judgment, which may not always be optimally trained for such evaluations and can be influenced by biases. Utilizing CV models can involve training them to automatically replicate expert assessments, providing more accurate evaluations for a larger patient population.

The most promising machine learning (ML) models for preoperatively predicting cytoreduction outcomes have been recently identified through a systematic review. These models will undergo validation using the dataset and annotations gathered in this project. If required, the model will be further refined and updated to enhance its performance. Given that there are multiple variables of various natures (such as clinical characteristics, laboratory values, radiological features, and intraoperative findings) that impact cytoreductive surgery outcomes, ML models are well-suited for handling extensive sets of variables, particularly when the relationships between them are non-linear. The goal is to develop a predictive model for cytoreduction outcomes based on clinical characteristics, laboratory values, and radiological features.