A healthcare technology company has announced that its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer compared to traditional methods used by doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study with ten physicians who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. The company’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7% in cancer detection, while the doctors’ manual assessments varied between 67.2% and 75.9%.
This research, carried out in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, also indicated that the use of AI in cancer contouring allowed for size predictions that were 45 times more accurate compared to traditional methods.
According to Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology at UCLA and the senior author of the study, the integration of AI assistance not only improved doctors’ accuracy but also increased consistency among their assessments.
Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, highlighted the limitation of MRIs in detecting certain tumors, saying that some are “MRI-invisible.” He emphasized that AI can enhance diagnostic capabilities in these situations.
Dr. Brisbane noted the potential for AI to facilitate more effective and individualized cancer treatments, potentially increasing their success rate against the disease. He remarked that AI has the ability to surpass human diagnostic capabilities.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Natarajan, expressed the importance of validating such innovations through studies and gaining recognition from the American Medical Association.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and the disease is expected to cause 35,250 deaths this year out of an estimated 299,010 new cases.