An artificial intelligence healthcare company claims that its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer compared to traditional methods used by doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study last month where ten physicians evaluated 50 distinct prostate cancer cases. The results showed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software detected the cancer with an accuracy of 84.7%, while doctors manually assessing the cases achieved accuracy rates ranging from 67.2% to 75.9%.
Conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, the study also indicated that the use of AI in cancer contouring significantly improved predictions of tumor size, making them 45 times more accurate and consistent.
“We observed that AI assistance enhanced both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ evaluations, leading to greater agreement among physicians when using the AI tool,” said Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and senior author of the study.
While doctors commonly use MRIs to determine the size of tumors, some tumors remain “MRI-invisible,” as noted by Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. He emphasized that AI can fill the gap left by MRIs.
“Overall, integrating AI into cancer treatment has the potential to provide more effective and personalized patient care, with therapies tailored to individual needs and improved success rates against the disease,” commented Brisbane, suggesting that AI can exceed human capabilities.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed enthusiasm regarding the validation of such innovations through studies and acknowledgment from the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and about 1 in 44 will succumb to the disease. This year, it is estimated that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the U.S., with 35,250 projected fatalities.