An artificial intelligence healthcare company has announced that its software can detect the extent of prostate cancer more accurately than human doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study last month involving ten medical professionals who each evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases. The results showed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software was able to identify cancer with an accuracy of 84.7%, compared to the accuracy rates of physicians which ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The study, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, revealed that when AI was used to assist with cancer contouring, the predictions regarding cancer size were 45 times more accurate and consistent than without AI.
According to Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, the integration of AI assistance made doctors both more accurate and more consistent in their assessments, leading to greater agreement among them.
Doctors typically rely on MRI scans to determine tumor size, but some tumors are not visible on these scans. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, noted that AI can provide assistance where MRIs fall short.
Brisbane emphasized that utilizing AI in cancer treatment could result in more effective and personalized care for patients, with therapies that are better adapted to individual requirements and more successful in combating the illness. He added that AI has the potential to surpass human capabilities.
Avenda Health CEO Dr. Shyam Natarajan remarked that the validation of such innovations through studies and their recognition by the American Medical Association is empowering for physicians.
Statistics from the American Cancer Society indicate that approximately 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and about 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. This year, it is estimated that there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer in the U.S., with 35,250 projected deaths attributed to the disease.