An AI healthcare company claims its software is more effective in detecting prostate cancer than traditional methods used by doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study involving ten physicians who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. Their AI software, Unfold AI, achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7%, while the doctors’ manual detection accuracy ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
This research was conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology. It also highlighted that AI-assisted cancer contouring was 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to methods used without AI.
According to Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA and senior author of the study, using AI led to greater accuracy and consistency among doctors, resulting in more agreement on diagnoses when AI was utilized.
While doctors often refer to MRIs to determine tumor sizes, some tumors are undetectable by MRI, as noted by Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. AI technology can provide insight where MRI fails.
Dr. Brisbane stated that incorporating AI into cancer treatment could enhance personalized care for patients, leading to more effective treatments tailored to individual requirements. He emphasized that AI could surpass human capabilities in detecting cancer.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, described it as encouraging for physicians to see such innovations recognized through scientific studies and by the American Medical Association (AMA).
In the United States, approximately 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, with 1 in 44 men succumbing to the disease, as per the American Cancer Society. This year alone, an estimated 299,010 new prostate cancer cases are expected, with around 35,250 deaths resulting from the illness.