Avenda Health has announced that its AI software for healthcare can detect the extent of prostate cancer with greater accuracy than human doctors. A recent study conducted by the company involved ten physicians evaluating 50 distinct prostate cancer cases. The findings revealed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in cancer detection. In comparison, the doctors’ manual detection methods showed accuracy rates ranging from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The study, which was conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, highlighted that AI-assisted cancer contouring provided predictions of tumor size that were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to traditional methods.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology and the senior author of the study, stated that the integration of AI assistance improved both accuracy and consistency among doctors, leading to higher agreement among professionals when utilizing AI tools.
Doctors typically rely on MRI scans to assess tumor size, but some tumors can be undetectable on MRIs. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, emphasized the effectiveness of AI in identifying tumors that MRIs cannot visualize. He remarked that leveraging AI in cancer care could yield more personalized and effective treatment options tailored to individual patients, advancing the fight against the disease.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed optimism about the validation of such innovations through research and acknowledgment from the American Medical Association.
According to estimates from the American Cancer Society, about one in eight men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and one in 44 men will succumb to the disease. This year alone, approximately 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer are expected, with around 35,250 fatalities projected.