A healthcare technology company claims that its software can identify the extent of prostate cancer more accurately than human doctors.
Avenda Health recently published a study involving ten physicians who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. The results showed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software detected cancer with an accuracy of 84.7%. In comparison, the doctors’ manual assessments ranged from 67.2% to 75.9% accuracy.
Conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and featured in the Journal of Urology, the study revealed that when aided by AI for cancer contouring, the estimations of tumor sizes became 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to assessments without AI assistance.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA, emphasized that AI’s support not only improved the accuracy of diagnoses but also increased the consensus among doctors.
Traditional diagnostics often rely on MRI scans, but some tumors can be “MRI-invisible,” noted Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. AI technology can address the limitations of MRI.
Dr. Brisbane added that integrating AI into cancer treatment could lead to more effective and personalized care, allowing treatments to be customized to better meet the individual needs of patients. He underscored AI’s potential to exceed human capabilities in this domain.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is inspiring for physicians to see 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 United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, with a mortality rate of 1 in 44. This year alone, an estimated 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer are expected in the U.S., with 35,250 fatalities anticipated from the disease.