An AI healthcare company has announced that its software can detect the scope of prostate cancer with greater accuracy than traditional medical professionals.
Avenda Health published a study last month that involved ten doctors reviewing 50 different prostate cancer cases. Their Unfold AI software demonstrated an 84.7% accuracy rate in detecting cancer, significantly outperforming the physicians, whose accuracy ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The research, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and featured in the Journal of Urology, showed that AI-assisted cancer contouring predictions were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to when AI was not utilized.
“As we observed, the inclusion of AI assistance improved both the accuracy and consistency of physicians’ assessments, leading to a higher level of agreement among doctors using AI tools,” noted Dr. Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and senior author of the study.
Traditionally, doctors leverage MRI scans to gauge tumor size; however, some tumors remain “MRI-invisible,” highlighting where AI can offer support, according to Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “AI is capable of addressing limitations that MRIs face,” he added.
Dr. Brisbane emphasized that incorporating AI in cancer treatment could enhance personalized care for patients, allowing for treatments that are more specifically tailored to individual needs and potentially more effective against the disease. “AI can surpass human capabilities,” he remarked.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to witness such innovations validated through extensive studies and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the United States will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 will succumb to the disease. The organization projects around 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer will be identified in the U.S. this year, with an estimated 35,250 resulting in death.