A healthcare company specializing in artificial intelligence claims that its software can more accurately determine the extent of prostate cancer than human doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study involving ten physicians who each evaluated 50 different prostate cancer cases. Their AI software, known as Unfold AI, achieved a detection accuracy of 84.7%, while the physicians’ manual assessments ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The research, which partnered with UCLA Health and was published in the Journal of Urology, also indicated that when AI was used to assist in cancer contouring, estimates of cancer size were 45 times more precise and consistent compared to traditional methods.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA and the senior author of the study, noted that AI assistance not only improved the accuracy of the doctors but also increased agreement among them during assessments.
Generally, physicians rely on MRIs to gauge tumor size; however, some tumors remain “MRI-invisible,” as pointed out by Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. He emphasized that AI technology helps in these challenging cases.
Dr. Brisbane further stated that integrating AI into cancer treatment holds the potential to enhance patient care by personalizing treatments to better address individual needs and improve outcomes in combating the disease.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Natarajan, expressed pride in the validation of their innovation through this study and its recognition by the American Medical Association (AMA).
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, and 1 in 44 will succumb to the illness. In the U.S. alone, it is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases this year, with 35,250 resulting in death.