An AI healthcare company claims that its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer compared to doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study last month involving ten physicians who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. 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%.
The research, performed in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, demonstrated that AI-assisted cancer contouring provided cancer size predictions that were 45 times more accurate and consistent than those made without AI.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, noted that utilizing AI improved both the accuracy and consistency of the doctors’ assessments, resulting in greater consensus among them.
While doctors often rely on MRIs to measure tumor size, some tumors are not visible on these scans. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, pointed out that AI can assist in situations where MRIs do not.
Brisbane emphasized that the integration of AI in cancer treatment could enable more effective and personalized patient care, with treatments tailored to individual needs that are more successful in combating the disease. He remarked that AI has the potential to exceed human capabilities.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to see such innovations validated through research and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
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 die from it. This year, an estimated 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer are projected in the U.S., with 35,250 expected fatalities.