An AI healthcare company claims its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer than doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study involving ten doctors who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. The findings revealed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, while the physicians’ manual assessments ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
This research, which was a collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, also highlighted that AI-assisted cancer contouring improved predictions of tumor size by a factor of 45 compared to traditional methods.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and senior author of the study, noted that the use of AI helped doctors enhance their accuracy and consistency, leading to greater agreement among physicians when utilizing AI support.
Typically, doctors rely on MRIs to determine tumor size. However, some tumors are not visible on MRIs, according to Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. He emphasized that AI can assist in areas where MRIs fall short.
Brisbane added that the integration of AI in cancer care could result in more effective and personalized treatments, tailored to meet individual patient needs and improving success rates against the disease. He stated that AI can extend beyond human capabilities.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to see such innovations validated by studies and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
In the United States, approximately one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, with one in 44 men succumbing to the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. It is projected that there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer this year, with an estimated 35,250 fatalities resulting from the illness.