A healthcare AI company has announced that its software can detect the extent of prostate cancer more accurately than physicians.
Avenda Health published a study last month involving ten doctors who evaluated 50 different prostate cancer cases each. The company’s Unfold AI software identified cancer with an accuracy rate of 84.7%, while the manual assessments by doctors ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The study, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and featured in the Journal of Urology, revealed that using AI for cancer contouring enhanced predictions of tumor size, making them 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to traditional methods.
Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology at UCLA and senior author of the study, stated that incorporating AI technology led to increased accuracy and consistency among doctors, resulting in greater agreement when using AI support.
Doctors typically rely on MRIs to gauge tumor size; however, some tumors are “MRI-invisible,” noted Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA. He explained that AI technology can compensate for these limitations.
“Utilizing AI in cancer treatment can facilitate more effective and personalized patient care, with treatments more precisely suited to individual needs and more efficient in combating the disease,” Brisbane added, emphasizing that AI has capabilities that surpass traditional human assessments.
Avenda Health CEO Dr. Shyam Natarajan expressed that it is encouraging for healthcare providers to see such innovations being validated through research and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 will succumb to the illness. This year, it is estimated that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the US, with 35,250 fatalities expected.