An AI healthcare company has announced that its software can identify prostate cancer more accurately than human doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study involving ten physicians who evaluated 50 different cases of prostate cancer. 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%.
This study, executed in conjunction with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, revealed that AI-assisted cancer contouring resulted in size predictions that were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to traditional methods.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA and the study’s senior author, emphasized that AI assistance led to both improved accuracy and consistency among doctors, allowing for greater agreement in evaluations.
While doctors typically rely on MRIs to assess tumor size, some cancers are “MRI-invisible,” according to Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He noted that AI technology fills in the gaps where MRIs may fall short.
Dr. Brisbane stated, “Overall, the integration of AI in cancer treatment could facilitate more effective and personalized patient care, leading to treatments that are better suited to individual needs and more successful in combating the disease.” He added that AI has the potential to “exceed human capability.”
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is “empowering for physicians” to see such innovations validated by research and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetimes, and 1 in 44 will succumb to the illness. The organization estimates that there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer in the U.S. this year, with 35,250 deaths attributed to the disease.