Artificial intelligence application in the diagnosis and treatment of bladder cancer: advance, challenges, and opportunities

Front Oncol. 2024 Nov 7:14:1487676. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1487676. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Bladder cancer (BC) is a serious and common malignant tumor of the urinary system. Accurate and convenient diagnosis and treatment of BC is a major challenge for the medical community. Due to the limited medical resources, the existing diagnosis and treatment protocols for BC without the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) still have certain shortcomings. In recent years, with the development of AI technologies such as deep learning and machine learning, the maturity of AI has made it more and more applied to the medical field, including improving the speed and accuracy of BC diagnosis and providing more powerful treatment options and recommendations related to prognosis. Advances in medical imaging technology and molecular-level research have also contributed to the further development of such AI applications. However, due to differences in the sources of training information and algorithm design issues, there is still room for improvement in terms of accuracy and transparency for the broader use of AI in clinical practice. With the popularization of digitization of clinical information and the proposal of new algorithms, artificial intelligence is expected to learn more effectively and analyze similar cases more accurately and reliably, promoting the development of precision medicine, reducing resource consumption, and speeding up diagnosis and treatment. This review focuses on the application of artificial intelligence in the diagnosis and treatment of BC, points out some of the challenges it faces, and looks forward to its future development.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; bladder cancer; deep learning; machine learning; radiation therapy.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The present study was supported by Nanjing Health Science and Technology Development Special Fund Project (grant no. GBX22320), Jiangsu University Philosophy and Social Science Research Project (grant no.2021SJA0307), Nanjing Medical University Education Research Project (grant no. 2021LX041) and Clinical Research Special Funding Project of Wu Jieping Medical Foundation (no. 320.6750.2020-10-113).