Avenda Health, an AI healthcare company, claims that its software can more accurately assess the progression of prostate cancer than traditional methods used by physicians.
The company conducted a study with ten doctors who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. According to the findings, Avenda’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, compared to the accuracy of doctors, which ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
This research, conducted alongside UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, highlighted that when AI was utilized for cancer contouring, predictions regarding tumor size were 45 times more accurate and consistent than when doctors relied solely on manual assessments.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the senior author of the study, stated that AI assistance boosted both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ evaluations, leading to increased agreement among them.
Typically, physicians employ MRIs to determine tumor size; however, Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, noted that some tumors are “MRI-invisible.” He explained that AI technology fills this diagnostic gap.
Dr. Brisbane expressed optimism about AI’s potential impact on cancer treatment, suggesting it could facilitate more personalized and effective patient care by tailoring treatments to individual needs and enhancing treatment success rates. He emphasized that AI has the capability to surpass human diagnostic abilities.
Avenda Health CEO Dr. Natarajan highlighted the significance of this innovation, stating it is rewarding for physicians to see such advancements validated through research and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
In the United States, approximately 1 in 8 men will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis in their lifetime, with 1 in 44 expected to succumb to the disease, as reported by the American Cancer Society. It is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the US this year, with an estimated 35,250 fatalities resulting from the illness.