An AI healthcare company claims that its software can identify the extent of prostate cancer more precisely than human doctors.
Avenda Health published a study last month in collaboration with UCLA Health, which involved ten doctors assessing 50 different prostate cancer cases. The company’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, while the doctors’ manual assessments ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
Additionally, the study, featured in the Journal of Urology, indicated that AI-assisted cancer contouring predictions were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to methods without AI support.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, stated that AI assistance improved both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ diagnoses, leading to greater agreement among them.
While doctors typically rely on MRIs to determine tumor sizes, some tumors can be “MRI-invisible,” according to Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He noted that AI can provide valuable insights in these cases.
Brisbane added that incorporating AI in cancer treatment could enhance the effectiveness of personalized patient care, offering treatments tailored to individual needs and improving the chances of successfully combating the disease. He emphasized that AI has the potential to surpass human capabilities.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, remarked that it is encouraging for physicians to witness such innovations gain validation through research and recognition by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the U.S. will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis during their lifetime, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. This year, it is projected that there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer in the U.S., with 35,250 fatalities attributed to the illness.