An artificial intelligence healthcare company claims that its software can more accurately determine the extent of prostate cancer compared to traditional methods used by doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study involving ten physicians, each evaluating 50 prostate cancer cases. The company’s Unfold AI software demonstrated an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, whereas the accuracy of doctors performing manual assessments ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The research, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, revealed that utilizing AI for cancer contouring enabled predictions of tumor size to be 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to assessments without AI.
According to Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, the incorporation of AI assistance improved both accuracy and consistency in diagnoses, leading to a higher level of agreement among doctors.
Doctors commonly use MRIs to estimate tumor size; however, some tumors remain “MRI-invisible,” as noted by Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He emphasized that AI addresses these limitations of MRIs.
Brisbane stated that the integration of AI in cancer treatment has the potential to foster more effective and personalized care, ensuring therapies are better suited to individual patient needs, thus enhancing treatment success. He remarked that AI can surpass human capabilities in this context.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is empowering for medical professionals to witness such innovations being validated through research and recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA).
In the United States, approximately 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 will succumb to the disease, as reported by the American Cancer Society. This year, there are an estimated 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer, with 35,250 fatalities attributed to the disease.