An AI healthcare firm claims that its software is capable of detecting the extent of prostate cancer more reliably than medical professionals.
Avenda Health released a study last month involving ten doctors who evaluated 50 different cases of prostate cancer each. The study found that Avenda’s Unfold AI software had an accuracy rate of 84.7% in identifying cancer, compared to the range of 67.2% to 75.9% achieved by physicians performing manual assessments.
Conducted in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, the study also highlighted that utilizing AI for cancer measurement resulted in predictions of tumor size being 45 times more accurate and consistent than traditional methods.
Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, remarked that AI assistance not only increased accuracy but also improved consistency among doctors, leading to greater agreement in diagnoses when using AI tools.
Traditionally, physicians rely on MRIs to gauge tumor dimensions, but Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, noted that some tumors are “MRI-invisible.” He emphasized that AI fills the gaps where MRIs are inadequate.
Brisbane further stated that the integration of AI in cancer treatment could facilitate more effective and personalized care, allowing for therapies that are more closely aligned with patients’ unique needs and are more successful in combating the illness. He asserted that AI can extend beyond the capabilities of human evaluation.
Dr. Shyam Natarajan, CEO of Avenda Health, expressed the empowerment physicians feel in witnessing such innovations being validated through research and acknowledged by the American Medical Association (AMA).
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the United States will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis in their lifetime, and 1 in 44 will succumb to the disease. It is projected that there will be 299,010 new cases of prostate cancer this year, with 35,250 fatalities resulting from it.