An artificial intelligence healthcare company claims its software can detect the extent of prostate cancer more precisely than medical professionals.
Avenda Health published a study indicating that its Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in cancer detection. In contrast, ten doctors who manually assessed 50 prostate cancer cases had varying accuracy rates between 67.2% and 75.9%.
Conducted in conjunction with UCLA Health and featured in the Journal of Urology, the study highlighted that AI assistance significantly enhanced predictions regarding cancer size, improving accuracy and consistency by a factor of 45 compared to assessments without AI.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and senior author of the research, stated that AI assistance helped doctors agree more on their assessments, thus increasing both accuracy and consistency.
Traditionally, doctors have relied on MRIs to gauge tumor size. However, some tumors are difficult to detect with MRIs alone, as noted by Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He emphasized that AI can effectively identify cases where MRIs are inadequate.
Dr. Brisbane remarked that employing AI in cancer treatment could enable more effective and personalized patient care, tailoring interventions to individual needs and enhancing treatment success. He also noted that AI can surpass human capabilities in specific areas.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, expressed that it is empowering for healthcare professionals to witness such innovations being validated through research and recognized 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 during their lifetime, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. This year, around 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer are anticipated in the U.S., with 35,250 expected fatalities from the illness.