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DUS measurements for popliteal artery aneurysms (PAAs) specifically can be time-consuming, error-prone, and operator-dependent. To eliminate this subjectivity and provide efficient segmentation, we applied artificial intelligence (AI) to accurately delineate inner and outer lumen on DUS. DUS images were selected from a cohort of patients with PAAs from a multi-institutional platform. Encord is an easy-to-use, readily available online AI platform that was used to segment both the inner lumen and outer lumen of the PAA on DUS images. A model trained on 20 images and tested on 80 images had a mean Average Precision of 0.85 for the outer polygon and 0.23 for the inner polygon. The outer polygon had a higher recall score than precision score at 0.90 and 0.85, respectively. The inner polygon had a score of 0.25 for both precision and recall. The outer polygon false-negative rate was the lowest in images with the least amount of blur. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using the widely available Encord AI platform to identify standard features of PAAs that are critical for operative decision making.

Fraud in medical publishing has risen to the national spotlight as manufactured and suspect data have led to retractions of papers in prominent journals. Moral turpitude in medical research has led to the loss of National Institute of Health (NIH) grants, directly affected patient care, and has led to severe legal ramifications for some authors. While there are multiple checks and balances in medical research to prevent fraud, the final enforcement lies with journal editors and publishers. There is an ethical and legal obligation to make careful and critical examinations of the medical research published in their journals. Failure to follow the highest standards in medical publishing can lead to legal liability and destroy a journal’s integrity. More significant, however, is the protection of the medical profession’s trust with their colleagues and the public they serve. This article discusses various techniques and tools available to editors and publishers that can help curtail fraud in medical publishing.