A healthcare AI company claims that its software can identify the extent of prostate cancer more accurately than human doctors.
Avenda Health conducted a study that included ten physicians, each evaluating 50 prostate cancer cases. The company’s Unfold AI software achieved an accuracy rate of 84.7%, while the doctors’ manual assessments ranged from 67.2% to 75.9%.
The research, carried out in collaboration with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, also revealed that utilizing AI for cancer contouring resulted in size predictions that were 45 times more precise and reliable compared to assessments made without AI.
Shyam Natarajan, an assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, noted that the use of AI assistance made physicians both more accurate and more consistent in their evaluations, leading to greater agreement among doctors.
Traditionally, doctors rely on MRIs to determine tumor size, but some tumors may not be visible through this imaging technique, according to Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He emphasized that AI can fill the gaps where MRIs fall short.
Dr. Brisbane stated that incorporating AI into cancer treatment could enhance personalized care for patients, allowing for therapies that are better suited to individual needs and more effective in combating the disease. He highlighted AI’s potential to surpass human capabilities in this regard.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed that it is empowering for physicians to have such innovations validated through research and recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA).
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the U.S. will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis in their lifetimes, and 1 in 44 men will die from the disease. It is projected that there will be 299,010 new prostate cancer cases in the U.S. this year, with an estimated 35,250 fatalities.