Avenda Health, an AI healthcare company, claims its software can more accurately assess prostate cancer than medical professionals.
A recent study from the company involved ten doctors who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. The results showed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software detected cancer with an accuracy rate of 84.7%. In contrast, the physicians’ manual assessments ranged between 67.2% and 75.9%.
This research was conducted in partnership with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology. It also revealed that AI-enhanced cancer contouring resulted in predictions of tumor size being 45 times more accurate and consistent than traditional methods without AI.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology and the senior author of the study, stated that the incorporation of AI assistance improved both the accuracy and consistency of the doctors’ evaluations, leading to greater consensus among them.
While doctors typically rely on MRIs to determine tumor sizes, Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA, pointed out that some tumors are not visible on MRIs, and AI can fill in these gaps.
Brisbane noted that the integration of AI in cancer treatment could enhance personalized patient care by tailoring treatments to individual needs, thereby improving success rates against the disease. He emphasized that AI can “go beyond human ability.”
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is encouraging for physicians to witness such innovations being validated through credible studies and acknowledged by organizations like the AMA.
According to the American Cancer Society, around 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and approximately 1 in 44 will succumb to the disease. This year, it is estimated there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer in the U.S., with 35,250 projected deaths from the disease.