An AI healthcare company has announced that its software can detect the extent of prostate cancer more accurately than traditional methods used by doctors.
Avenda Health recently published a study involving ten physicians who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. The company’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, while the physicians’ accuracy ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
Conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, the study also revealed that AI-assisted cancer contouring resulted in predictions of cancer size that were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to manual assessments.
According to Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA and senior author of the study, the integration of AI assistance improved both the accuracy and consistency of the doctors’ assessments, leading to greater agreement among them.
Typically, physicians rely on MRIs to determine tumor size; however, some tumors may not be visible through MRI scans. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA, noted that AI can fill these gaps where MRIs do not provide clarity.
Brisbane emphasized that utilizing AI in cancer treatment could offer more effective and personalized care, allowing for treatments tailored to individual patient needs, which are potentially more successful in combating the disease.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to see such innovations validated through research and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
In the United States, about 1 in 8 men are expected to be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, with 1 in 44 men succumbing to the disease, as reported by the American Cancer Society. This year, it is projected that there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer, with an estimated 35,250 deaths resulting from the illness.