A healthcare AI company claims that its software can more accurately assess the extent of prostate cancer compared to traditional methods used by doctors. Avenda Health conducted a study involving ten physicians who evaluated 50 prostate cancer cases each. 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%.
This research, performed in collaboration with UCLA Health and featured in the Journal of Urology, highlighted that utilizing AI for cancer contouring significantly improved the precision of tumor size predictions, being 45 times more accurate than previous methods.
Shyam Natarajan, assistant adjunct professor of urology, surgery, and bioengineering at UCLA and the study’s senior author, noted that AI assistance not only enhanced the accuracy of doctors but also led to greater consistency among them. When supported by AI, physicians showed increased agreement in their assessments.
Typically, doctors rely on MRIs to gauge tumor sizes, but some tumors remain “MRI-invisible,” as Dr. Wayne Brisbane, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, explained. AI technology addresses the limitations of MRIs.
Dr. Brisbane emphasized that incorporating AI into cancer treatment could provide more effective and personalized care for patients, tailoring treatments to their unique needs and increasing the likelihood of successful outcomes.
Avenda Health’s CEO, Dr. Shyam Natarajan, expressed pride in the recognition of their innovation by medical studies and bodies like the AMA.
According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1 in 8 men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with prostate cancer throughout their lives, and 1 in 44 men will succumb to the disease. This year, the U.S. is expected to report around 299,010 new prostate cancer cases, with an estimated 35,250 deaths.