An AI healthcare firm has announced that its software can more accurately ascertain the extent of prostate cancer compared to traditional methods used by doctors.
Avenda Health published a study last month featuring ten doctors who evaluated 50 distinct prostate cancer cases. Their AI solution, known as Unfold AI, demonstrated an accuracy rate of 84.7% in cancer detection, whereas the physicians’ manual assessments ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
This research, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and featured in the Journal of Urology, revealed that AI-assisted cancer contouring yielded predictions of tumor size that were 45 times more accurate and consistent than manual assessments.
According to Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, the integration of AI assistance resulted in physicians being both more accurate and consistent in their evaluations, leading to greater agreement among doctors.
Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, noted that while physicians commonly use MRIs to evaluate tumor size, some tumors are not visible on these scans. He emphasized that AI technology can help identify these “MRI-invisible” tumors.
Brisbane highlighted that the use of AI in cancer treatment has the potential to enhance patient care through more effective and personalized treatment plans, tailored to individual patient needs. He remarked that AI has capabilities that surpass human limitations.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to witness innovations like this being validated through research and recognized 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 men expected to succumb to the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. This year, it is anticipated that there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer in the U.S., with 35,250 deaths attributed to the illness.