An artificial intelligence healthcare company claims that its software can detect the extent of prostate cancer more accurately than human doctors.
Avenda Health recently 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 identifying cancer, while the doctors’ manual assessments ranged between 67.2% and 75.9%.
The study, which took place in collaboration with UCLA Health and was published in the Journal of Urology, also revealed that using AI for cancer contouring resulted in size predictions that were 45 times more accurate and consistent than those produced without AI assistance.
According to Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and a senior author of the study, the integration of AI assistance improved both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ assessments, leading to better agreement among them.
Traditionally, doctors rely on MRI scans to determine tumor sizes; however, some tumors can be “MRI-invisible,” noted Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. He emphasized that AI plays a crucial role in identifying these elusive tumors.
Dr. Brisbane expressed that the incorporation of AI in cancer treatment could pave the way for more effective and personalized patient care, tailoring treatments to individual needs and improving outcomes against the disease. He mentioned that AI capabilities can “exceed human ability.”
Avenda Health CEO Dr. Shyam Natarajan highlighted the significance of this validation through studies and recognition by the American Medical Association (AMA).
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, and one in 44 will succumb to the disease. It is projected that 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer will emerge in the U.S. this year, with 35,250 resulting in fatalities.