An AI healthcare company has announced that its software can more accurately detect the extent of prostate cancer compared to traditional methods used by doctors.
A study conducted by Avenda Health involved ten physicians evaluating 50 prostate cancer cases each. The company’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7%, whereas the doctors’ manual assessments ranged from 67.2% to 75.9% accuracy.
This research, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, revealed that AI significantly enhances predictions of cancer size, making them 45 times more accurate and consistent.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, noted that AI assistance improved both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ diagnoses, leading to increased agreement among them.
Doctors typically use MRI scans to determine tumor size; however, some tumors are not visible on these scans. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, highlighted that AI can identify issues that MRI cannot.
Dr. Brisbane remarked that incorporating AI into cancer treatment has the potential to provide more effective and personalized patient care, tailoring treatments to individuals’ needs and improving success rates against the disease.
Avenda Health CEO Dr. Shyam Natarajan emphasized the importance of this innovative approach being validated through research and recognized by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. It is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases this year in the United States, with 35,250 fatalities resulting from the condition.