An AI healthcare company has announced that its software for detecting prostate cancer is more accurate than human doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study with ten doctors who evaluated 50 different cases of prostate cancer. The company’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7%, whereas the physicians’ manual assessments ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The research, in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, revealed that AI-assisted cancer contouring provided predictions of tumor size that were 45 times more accurate 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 the integration of AI helped doctors become both more accurate and consistent in their assessments, fostering greater agreement among them.
While doctors commonly rely on MRIs to gauge tumor size, some tumors remain “MRI-invisible.” Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, emphasized that AI can fill in the gaps where MRI technology falls short.
Overall, Brisbane stated that incorporating AI into cancer treatment could result in more effective and personalized patient care, with treatments being better tailored to individual needs. He highlighted AI’s potential to surpass human capabilities.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed pride in the validation of this innovation through studies, remarking on the recognition by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men will receive a diagnosis of prostate cancer in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. This year, around 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer are projected in the US, with an estimated 35,250 fatalities.