An AI healthcare firm claims that its software can identify the extent of prostate cancer with greater precision than human doctors.
Avenda Health recently conducted a study involving ten physicians who evaluated 50 various prostate cancer cases each. The findings revealed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in cancer detection, in contrast to the accuracy rates of physicians, which ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The research, conducted alongside UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, highlighted that utilizing AI for cancer contouring resulted in predictions of tumor size that were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to traditional methods.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA and the senior author of the study, commented that AI assistance made physicians not only more accurate but also more consistent, leading to greater agreement among doctors when using AI tools.
Typically, doctors rely on MRIs to determine the size of tumors. However, some tumors are invisible on MRIs. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA, explained that AI can address the limitations of MRI scans.
Brisbane noted that the integration of AI in cancer treatment could enhance the effectiveness and personalization of patient care, enabling treatments that are better suited to individual needs and more efficient in combating the disease, stating that AI has the potential to “go beyond human ability.”
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, expressed that the validation of such innovations through studies and acknowledgment by the AMA is encouraging for physicians.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, and 1 in 44 will succumb to the disease. It is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the US this year, with 35,250 deaths resulting from it.