An artificial intelligence healthcare company claims that its software is able to detect the extent of prostate cancer with greater accuracy than medical professionals.
Last month, Avenda Health published research involving ten doctors who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. The company’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7%, outperforming the manual detection rates of doctors, which ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The study, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, further demonstrated that AI-assisted cancer contouring predictions were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to traditional methods.
According to Dr. Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and senior author of the study, the integration of AI assistance led to improved accuracy and consistency among doctors, resulting in greater agreement in their assessments.
Typically, doctors rely on MRI scans to gauge tumor size; however, some tumors remain “MRI-invisible,” as noted by Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He highlighted that AI can capture details in instances where MRI fails.
Brisbane emphasized the potential of AI in cancer treatment, suggesting it could facilitate more effective and personalized patient care, tailoring treatments to individual needs and enhancing the likelihood of successful outcomes against the disease. He asserted that AI has the ability to exceed human capabilities.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, expressed that it is “empowering for physicians to see this kind of innovation being validated through studies and recognized by the AMA.”
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 1 in 44 men will succumb to the illness. It is estimated that in 2023, there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer in the US, with 35,250 expected fatalities from the disease.