AI is changing how cancer care decisions are made, empowering patients and doctors to make more personalized choices. For many patients facing a prostate cancer diagnosis, a traditional treatment plan could mean months of invasive procedures and a stack of medical bills. These new AI tools are helping doctors determine when treatment is necessary and when monitoring is most effective, giving patients a more personalized experience throughout their care journeys.
How AI Fits Into Prostate Cancer Care
Each case of prostate cancer is unique, but the current treatment options don’t necessarily take the individual’s needs into account.
“We’re really treating every prostate cancer that’s diagnosed kind of as a one-size-fits-all,” said Dr. Nitin Yerram, director of urologic research and co-director of urologic oncology at Hackensack University Medical Center. “And we’ve known over the last decade, or if not longer, that that’s not necessarily the case.”
Yerram continued: “Those are really the two biggest challenges that we’re facing when it comes down to prostate cancer, both screening and really personalizing the treatment options for individual patients.”
AI can help doctors and patients confront those challenges. Companies such as Artera AI offer AI-enabled predictive and prognostic cancer tests. These can help identify patients who may benefit from alternative therapeutic approaches and guide treatment decisions for localized prostate cancer. This is transformative for the future of care.
“Artificial intelligence is really coming into almost every aspect that we deal with… and honestly, medicine is really no different from all of those things,” Yerram said. “Arterra AI is a relatively new company in this area that’s come out using and harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to really help us understand prostate cancer better.”
AI Helps Avoid Unnecessary Treatment
The treatment for prostate cancer can be long and rigorous. Reducing the intensity or duration of therapy for prostate cancer patients is one benefit of AI. It reduces stress and helps maintain good outcomes without unnecessary physical discomfort or financial costs.
“In years past, we used to take kind of a one-size-fits-all approach… there’s no question you need to proceed on radical therapy,” Yerram said. “What essentially came back and said was this patient is actually low risk.”
Yerram continued: “The risk of metastasis was less than 1%, and their risk of prostate cancer–specific mortality was again less than 1%. I was able to offer a less intensive option for this man just based on this validated long-term test.”
This shift in action reinforces the need for personalized care with prostate cancer patients.
“Most other urologists probably would have said, ‘I’m going to take this out, I’m going to radiate you,’” Yerram added.
AI Improves Shared Decision-Making and Patient Confidence
For prostate cancer patients, getting the initial diagnosis can lead to fear-based decision-making. One patient might want everything done. Another might immediately be skeptical that doctors are pushing unnecessary treatments. AI tests can help to remove that uncertainty and create a clearer, data-driven vision for treatment. This helps patients to share the process with their doctors. It can also enhance confidence that the treatment plan is appropriate for their needs.
“We really need to be able to do a more shared decision-making model,” Yerram said. “That’s what these diagnostic tools, such as Arterra AI, do.”
The Bottom Line
With the need for personalized testing and treatment for prostate cancer patients, new AI technology could be the difference maker in short-term comfort and long-term health.
“It’s looking at hundreds, if not thousands, if not maybe millions of different features in that digital pathology,” Yerram said. “It can actually validate those outcomes to long-term potential things that patients care about.”
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