Advancing oral cancer diagnosis and risk assessment with artificial intelligence: a review

Abstract

This narrative review aims to appraise the evidence on artificial intelligence models for early diagnosis and risk stratification of oral cancer, focusing on data modalities, methodology differences, applications in the diagnostic flow and models’ performance. Models for early diagnosis and screening provide non-invasive diagnosis without the need for specialized instruments, which is ideal for early detection as a low-cost system. Supervised learning with well-annotated data provides reliable references for training the models, and therefore, reliable and promising results. Risk prediction models can be built based on medical record data, demographic data, clinical/histopathological descriptors, highly standardized images or a combination of these. Insights on which patients have a greater chance of malignancy development or disease recurrence can aid in providing personalized care, which can improve the patient’s prognosis. Artificial intelligence models demonstrate promising results in early diagnosis and risk stratification of oral cancer.

Keywords

Artificial intelligence / machine learning / deep learning / oral squamous cell carcinoma / oral potentially malignant disorder / leukoplakia

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