An artificial intelligence healthcare firm claims its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer compared to human doctors.
Avenda Health published a study last month in collaboration with UCLA Health, involving ten doctors who evaluated 50 different cases of prostate cancer. The firm’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, while the accuracy of the doctors ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The research, featured in the Journal of Urology, revealed that AI-assisted cancer contouring resulted in predictions of tumor size that were 45 times more precise and consistent than traditional methods.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, noted that AI assistance not only improved accuracy but also increased consistency among doctors, leading to greater agreement when using AI tools.
Doctors typically rely on MRIs to determine tumor size, but some tumors are not visible via this method. Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA, highlighted that AI can provide support when MRIs are insufficient. He emphasized that incorporating AI into cancer care could facilitate more effective and individualized patient treatment strategies.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to witness such innovations being validated through research and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, about one in eight men in the US will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, with one in 44 facing mortality from the disease. This year, it is estimated that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the US, with 35,250 projected deaths resulting from the disease.