A healthcare technology company claims that its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer than medical professionals.
Avenda Health conducted a study featuring ten doctors who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. The results showed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, while the accuracy of doctors ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
This research, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, revealed that employing AI for cancer contouring made predictions regarding tumor size 45 times more accurate and reliable compared to manual assessments.
Professor Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA, emphasized the benefits of AI support, noting that it enhanced both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ assessments, leading to consensus among them.
Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, pointed out that while MRIs are typically used to determine tumor size, some tumors are invisible on these scans, placing AI in a valuable position to fill this gap.
Brisbane stated that using AI in cancer treatment could provide more effective and personalized care for patients, improving treatment precision and success rates against the disease. He remarked that AI can surpass human capabilities in this context.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, expressed pride in the recognition of their innovations through such studies and endorsement from the AMA.
According to the American Cancer Society, around 1 in 8 men in the US will face a prostate cancer diagnosis during their lifetime, with 1 in 44 men succumbing to the disease. It is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the US this year, with an estimated 35,250 deaths resulting from it.