An artificial intelligence healthcare company claims its software can identify prostate cancer more accurately than traditional methods.
Avenda Health recently published a study involving ten doctors, each evaluating 50 prostate cancer cases. The findings showed that Avenda’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy of 84.7% in detecting cancer, compared to physicians who ranged from 67.2% to 75.9% in their manual assessments.
Conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and featured in the Journal of Urology, the study revealed that AI significantly enhances cancer contouring accuracy, with predictions of cancer size being 45 times more precise when assisted by AI.
“We found that using AI assistance improved both the accuracy and consistency of doctors’ evaluations, leading to greater agreement among physicians when using this technology,” stated Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author.
Typically, doctors utilize MRIs to assess tumor size; however, some tumors remain “MRI-invisible,” according to Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. He emphasized that AI fills the gaps where MRIs fall short.
“Utilizing AI in cancer treatment could result in more effective and personalized patient care, tailoring treatments to individual needs and enhancing the chances of successfully combating the disease,” Brisbane noted, highlighting AI’s capability to surpass human limitations.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it’s encouraging for physicians to witness such innovations being validated through research and gaining acknowledgment from the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. This year, it is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the U.S., with an estimated 35,250 deaths resulting from the illness.