Data from five ASTRO 2026 abstracts validate test performance across racial subgroups, real-world cohorts, and radiation therapy decision-making.
New clinical data presented at the 2026 American Society for Radiation Oncology annual meeting demonstrate that Artera’s multimodal artificial intelligence (MMAI) biomarker delivers consistent prognostic and predictive results across diverse patient populations with prostate cancer.
The findings span five abstracts evaluating global patient cohorts and US cooperative group trials, reinforcing the digital pathology-based platform‘s utility in guiding personalized prostate cancer treatment decisions.
“We believe the future of cancer care is one where the patient’s unique biology and risk increasingly inform personalized treatment decisions,” says Andre Esteva, CEO and co-founder of Artera, in a release. “These findings demonstrate the potential of Artera’s platform to deliver on this vision by providing consistent, data-backed insights across diverse populations, helping clinicians better tackle some longstanding questions in medicine today.”
Guiding Therapy Selection and Radiotherapy
In the GenesisCare-led ASTuTE trial in Australia, investigators evaluated how the MMAI biomarker informs clinical decisions regarding short-term androgen deprivation therapy (ST-ADT) for men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer. Incorporating MMAI risk profiles led clinicians and patients to reconsider ST-ADT in both directions, avoiding hormone therapy when biological risk did not warrant it and recommending it when testing indicated likely clinical benefit.
A separate oral presentation highlighted results from the POP-RT trial in patients with high-risk and very high-risk localized prostate cancer treated in India. Investigators found that whole-pelvis radiation was associated with a notable reduction in distant metastasis among patients identified as having high MMAI risk, whereas patients with intermediate MMAI risk did not derive a similar benefit. Because clinical oncology currently lacks validated biomarkers to select candidates for pelvic nodal irradiation, the findings support MMAI’s role in identifying patients most likely to benefit from expanded radiation fields while sparing others unnecessary exposure. The study also marks the first clinical validation of Artera’s MMAI platform in a South Asian population.
Benchmarking and Algorithmic Fairness
To confirm real-world performance, researchers benchmarked commercial MMAI risk projections against STAR-CAP, an established database containing outcomes from nearly 20,000 prostate cancer patients with long-term follow-up across diverse risk groups and therapeutic regimens. Projections for distant metastasis and prostate cancer-specific mortality generated for patients tested in a real-world commercial setting aligned closely with observed outcomes across each National Comprehensive Cancer Network risk tier.
The biological consistency of the algorithm was also examined in a transcriptomic evaluation of approximately 90 patients across native African, African American, and European American cohorts. Researchers found that higher MMAI scores correlated with shared gene expression patterns associated with tumor proliferation, aggressive disease biology, and distant metastasis across all three demographic groups.
In addition, an analysis of NRG/RTOG phase 3 post-radical prostatectomy trials demonstrated algorithmic fairness across racial and age subgroups. The biomarker’s prognostic accuracy remained consistent regardless of race or age, showing no evidence of algorithmic bias. The finding is particularly significant for African American men, who face disproportionately higher prostate cancer mortality and have historically been underrepresented in diagnostic biomarker development.
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