Avenda Health expands Unfold AI platform to support intraoperative prostate cancer care

Prostate treatment has improved with robotics and could improve again soon with artificial intelligence. Avenda Health today announced Surgery Mode, a new set of interoperable features for its Unfold AI offering. The AI-powered multimodal prostate cancer mapping platform is designed to reveal the true size and extent of the disease to help doctors make more informed treatment decisions.

“Our goal with Unfold AI has always been to provide greater clinical clarity at every stage of the patient’s cancer journey,” said Shyam Natarajan, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Avven Health.

“Whether a doctor is counseling a newly diagnosed patient, planning a targeted radiation oncology treatment, or performing a complex radical prostatectomy, having an accurate 3D map of the disease is transformative,” he added. “These new surgical enhancements give clinicians the visual confidence needed to achieve optimal cancer control while protecting patient quality of life during complex procedures.”

Founded in 2017, Avenda Health said so is creating a more personalized future in prostate cancer care. Using deep learning, the Culver City, California-based company’s software maps a patient’s cancer in 3D, giving doctors precise information and the confidence to make treatment decisions. Avven said it aims to improve outcomes, preserve quality of life and create a new standard of prostate cancer care.

Avenda Health bases Surgery on research

Avenda Health said it designed Surgery Mode to improve how surgeons use 3D AI mapping during non-robotic and robotic surgeries, along with new tools to streamline patient case management and physician workflows.

The launch is based on peer-reviewed research predicting that Unfold AI could cut positive surgical margins in half, substantially reducing cancer recurrence. In the study, the system outperformed MRI and other modalities in assessing whether the cancer had spread beyond the prostate, helping surgeons make nerve-saving decisions.

In Surgery mode, doctors can now access magnified 3D views for clearer visualization, adjust the cancer estimate map to match the camera angle on the surgical console, review underlying MRI slices during the procedure, and access capsule risk scores from a dedicated surgical view.

Avenda Health said Unfold AI is the only platform that implements multimodal artificial intelligence to analyze a patient’s MRI, biopsy, pathology and PSA together. It produces a customized 3D map of the extent of the cancer to provide surgeons with a more precise view of the tumor’s boundaries.

While Unfold AI has served as a decision support tool during pre-operative consultations, the latest expansion offers surgeons an improved version of these maps during prostate procedures. The suite of improved workflow tools also gives clinicians and staff greater visibility into the status of each patient case.

Main features

• Aligned Capsule Risk Score Mapping: The capsule risk score overlay now automatically reverses left/right visual orientation to mirror the surgical camera view, providing surgeons with immediate color-coded risk feedback by quadrant to guide precise nerve-sparing decisions in real time.
• Redesigned patient list and case filters: Improved patient organization and updated case status labels allow users to search for ongoing cases, add new patients, and filter by status to see the location of each case at a glance.
• Improved administrative control: New integrated tools allow staff to verify insurance approvals and confirm that administrative steps have been completed before the 3D map is generated.
• Simplified case management: Healthcare teams can now add and view patient notes directly from the patient list and update the assigned doctor on a patient report.

Unfold’s AI helps doctors identify the extent of the tumor

Avenda Health said the expanded capabilities extend Unfold AI’s reach across the prostate cancer care pathway, including active surveillance, focal therapy, surgeries and radiation therapy. Its interactive 3D maps serve as a visual guide for patient counseling and decision support, helping patients and doctors confidently choose their treatment path.

Now, with Surgery mode, the same patient-specific mapping technology can be used to provide clear visual boundaries in the operating room, actively guiding surgical procedures such as robotic prostatectomies.

Unfold AI predicts cancer spread into nearby anatomy with 92% accuracy, compared to 52% achieved using MRI alone. This spatial clarity is critical in helping surgeons determine whether nerve-sparing or non-nerve-sparing surgery should be performed.

Avenda noted that further research has shown that Unfold AI improves a doctor’s identification of tumor extent, increasing sensitivity from 37% to 97%. By extending Unfold AI from preoperative decision support to the operating room, the company said it is developing more precise views of prostate cancer that can support doctors at different stages of treatment.