A healthcare AI company has claimed that its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer compared to traditional methods employed by doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study involving ten physicians who examined 50 prostate cancer cases each. The results indicated that Avenda’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 research, carried out in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, highlighted that AI-assisted cancer contouring led to predictions of cancer size being 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to traditional methods.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the senior author of the study, noted that AI assistance improved both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ assessments, fostering greater agreement among them.
Many doctors rely on MRIs to evaluate tumor size; however, some tumors are not visible on these scans, according to Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. He emphasized that AI fills the gaps where MRIs fall short.
Dr. Brisbane explained that incorporating AI in cancer treatment could enable more effective and personalized patient care, with therapies better suited to individual needs and more successful in combating the disease. He remarked that AI has the potential to surpass human capabilities.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed enthusiasm for the validation of this innovative technology through studies and recognition from 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 during their lifetime, and 1 in 44 will succumb to the illness. This year, it is estimated that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the U.S., with 35,250 fatalities resulting from the disease.