A healthcare technology firm has claimed that its software is capable of identifying the extent of prostate cancer more precisely than medical professionals.
Avenda Health conducted a study last month involving ten physicians who evaluated 50 distinct prostate cancer cases. The firm’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, significantly higher than the manual detection accuracy of the physicians, which ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The research, carried out in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, revealed that when AI was employed to assist with cancer contouring, predictions regarding tumor size were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to traditional methods.
Shyam Natarajan, the assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the senior author of the study, noted that the integration of AI assistance enhanced both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ assessments, leading to increased agreement among them when assisted by AI.
Typically, physicians utilize MRIs to determine tumor size; however, some tumors remain undetectable in MRI scans. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, emphasized that AI effectively addresses this limitation.
Brisbane remarked that the incorporation of AI in cancer treatment could result in more effective and personalized patient care, with therapies that are better suited to individual needs and more successful in combating the disease. He stated that AI can “go beyond human ability.”
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, described the validation of such innovations through studies and recognition by the AMA as empowering for physicians.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and about 1 in 44 will succumb to the illness.
The forecast for this year indicates there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer in the United States, with 35,250 fatalities expected from the disease.