NHS trials AI prostate cancer tool that could ‘massively improve’ treatment

A new study is set to investigate how AI could significantly improve doctors’ decisions regarding prostate cancer treatment.

While diagnostic methods for the disease have become safer and more precise, medical professionals still face considerable challenges in accurately assessing its aggressiveness in individual patients.

This difficulty can lead to some men undergoing invasive procedures such as surgery or radiotherapy, when a less aggressive monitoring approach might have been more appropriate.

The crucial Vanguard Path study, spearheaded by researchers at the University of Oxford, is being funded with a £1.9m grant from the charity Prostate Cancer UK to address this vital issue.

Experts will first test the technology – called ArteraAI Prostate Biopsy Assay – on prostate biopsy samples from men who have already been diagnosed and treated for the disease and have at least five years of follow-up data.

The study will compare how well the predictions made by the AI tool match what happened to patients in the real world.

It will then be tested in real clinics on biopsies from men as they are diagnosed, with a focus on cases in which doctors find it hard to decide the best course of treatment.

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Source: The Independent, 3 November 2025