An artificial intelligence healthcare firm has announced that its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer compared to traditional methods used by physicians.
Avenda Health conducted a study involving ten doctors, each evaluating 50 prostate cancer cases. The results revealed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software detected cancer with an accuracy of 84.7%, whereas the physicians’ accuracy ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The study, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, highlighted that AI-assisted cancer contouring resulted in predictions of tumor size that were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to assessments made without AI.
Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, noted that AI assistance improved both accuracy and consistency among doctors, leading to greater agreement in their assessments.
While doctors typically rely on MRI scans to determine tumor size, some tumors are not visible in MRIs. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA, emphasized that AI is beneficial where MRIs fall short.
Brisbane indicated that integrating AI into cancer treatment could enhance personalized care for patients, allowing for treatments tailored to individual needs, thereby increasing the chances of successful outcomes.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, 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 receive a prostate cancer diagnosis during their lives, with 1 in 44 men likely to die from the disease. It is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the U.S. this year, with 35,250 fatalities resulting from the disease.