An artificial intelligence healthcare company has claimed that its software can more accurately detect the extent of prostate cancer compared to traditional methods used by doctors.
In a recent study, Avenda Health evaluated the performance of its Unfold AI software, involving ten physicians who looked at 50 prostate cancer cases each. The AI tool demonstrated an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, while the doctors’ manual assessments varied between 67.2% and 75.9%.
Conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, the study revealed that AI assistance significantly enhanced the accuracy of cancer size predictions, achieving a consistency that was 45 times better than when assessments were made without AI support.
Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and senior author of the study, noted that employing AI improved both the accuracy and consistency of the doctors’ evaluations, leading to a greater consensus among them.
Typically, doctors rely on MRI scans to gauge tumor sizes. However, Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, pointed out that certain tumors are not visible on MRIs, and AI technology fills this gap effectively.
Brisbane emphasized that the integration of AI into cancer treatment could facilitate more effective and personalized care, allowing therapies to be better tailored to individual patient needs and enhancing treatment success rates.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to have this kind of innovation validated through research and recognized by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, roughly 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and approximately 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 United States, with 35,250 fatalities expected.