An artificial intelligence healthcare company claims that its software can identify the extent of prostate cancer more accurately than human doctors.
Avenda Health recently released a study where ten physicians evaluated 50 different prostate cancer cases. The company’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in detecting cancer, compared to the 67.2% to 75.9% accuracy rates of the doctors performing manual assessments.
The study, conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, also revealed that using AI for cancer contouring resulted in predictions of tumor size that were 45 times more accurate and consistent than traditional methods.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the senior author of the study, noted that AI enhances both the accuracy and consistency of physicians’ assessments, indicating that doctors reached more consensus when utilizing AI support.
Although physicians typically rely on MRIs to gauge tumor size, some tumors remain “MRI-invisible,” as pointed out by Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA. He explained that AI technologies can address the limitations of traditional imaging techniques.
Dr. Brisbane emphasized that the integration of AI in cancer treatment could result in more effective and personalized patient care, leading to therapies that are more finely tuned to individual patient needs and more effective in combating the disease.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is empowering for physicians to witness such innovations being validated through research and acknowledged by the American Medical Association.
In the United States, approximately 1 in 8 men will face a prostate cancer diagnosis within their lives, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the illness, according to the American Cancer Society. This year, it is projected that there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer in the US, with 35,250 fatalities resulting from the disease.