An AI healthcare company claims that its software can detect the severity of prostate cancer more accurately than healthcare professionals.
A recent study indicated that the pill form of Novo Nordisk’s drug Ozempic can reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Avenda Health conducted a study that involved ten doctors assessing 50 different prostate cancer cases. Their Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy of 84.7% in detecting cancer, while the accuracy of physicians manually detecting cancer ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The study, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, also revealed that AI assistance significantly improved predictions of tumor size, making them 45 times more accurate compared to when AI was not utilized.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the senior author of the study, stated that the utilization of AI assistance enhances both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ assessments, resulting in greater agreement among them.
Doctors typically rely on MRIs to evaluate tumor size, but some tumors remain “MRI-invisible,” according to Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. He noted that AI can assist in identifying tumors that are overlooked by MRIs.
Dr. Brisbane remarked that the integration of AI in cancer treatment has the potential to facilitate more effective and personalized care, tailoring treatments to individual patient needs and improving treatment outcomes. He emphasized that AI has the capability to surpass human capabilities.
Avenda Health CEO Dr. Shyam Natarajan expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to see such innovation being validated through research and recognized by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 will succumb to the disease. In the United States, it is estimated that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases this year, with 35,250 fatalities attributed to the disease.