An artificial intelligence healthcare company claims that its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer compared to human doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study last month involving ten physicians, each evaluating 50 prostate cancer cases. The company’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, while the accuracy of the physicians ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The study, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, revealed that AI-assisted cancer contouring resulted in predictions of tumor size that were 45 times more accurate and consistent compared to assessments made without AI.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the senior author of the study, stated that the use of AI assistance not only enhanced the accuracy of the doctors’ assessments but also led to greater agreement among them.
Traditionally, doctors rely on MRI scans to determine tumor size, but some tumors are not visible on these scans, according to Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. AI technology fills the gap where MRIs fall short.
Dr. Brisbane emphasized that the integration of AI into cancer treatment could promote more effective and personalized patient care, allowing for treatments that are specifically tailored to individual needs and have a higher success rate in combating the disease. He noted that AI has the potential to surpass human capabilities.
Avenda Health CEO Dr. Shyam Natarajan expressed that it is “empowering for physicians” to witness the validation of such innovations through studies and endorsement by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the U.S. will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. It is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the U.S. this year, with an estimated 35,250 deaths attributed to the disease.