An AI healthcare company has claimed that its software outperforms doctors in accurately detecting the extent of prostate cancer. Avenda Health conducted a study involving ten physicians, each evaluating 50 prostate cancer cases. The company’s Unfold AI technology achieved a detection accuracy of 84.7%, compared to the manual assessments by doctors, which ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The research, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, highlighted that using AI for cancer contouring resulted in predictions of tumor size being 45 times more accurate and consistent than 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 enhances both the accuracy and consistency of doctors, leading to greater consensus among them.
Typically, doctors rely on MRIs to gauge tumor size; however, some tumors can be undetectable on these scans. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, explained that AI is beneficial in areas where MRIs have limitations.
Brisbane added that leveraging AI in cancer treatment has the potential to provide more effective and personalized care, tailoring treatments to better fit individual patient needs and improve outcomes against the disease. He emphasized that AI capabilities can extend beyond those of human practitioners.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to see such innovations validated by studies and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. This year, it is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the U.S., with 35,250 fatalities.