An AI healthcare firm claims its software can more accurately identify the extent of prostate cancer than medical professionals.
Avenda Health recently conducted a study involving ten doctors who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. The results showed 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% accuracy.
The research, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, highlights that the integration of AI for cancer contouring significantly improved predictions of tumor size, making them 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to traditional methods.
According to Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, the AI support not only enhanced the accuracy of doctors but also led to greater consensus among them when making assessments.
Doctors typically use MRI scans to gauge tumor size; however, some tumors are “MRI-invisible,” noted Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He emphasized that AI can provide assistance in cases where MRIs are insufficient.
Dr. Brisbane remarked that the application of AI in cancer treatment has the potential to result in more effective and personalized patient care, allowing for treatments that are better adapted to individual requirements and more successful in combating the disease. He stated that AI can surpass human capabilities in this context.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to witness such innovations being validated through research and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the U.S. is expected to be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. Anticipated data for this year projects around 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the U.S., with an estimated 35,250 deaths attributed to it.