Artificial intelligence in bone metastasis imaging: recent progresses from diagnosis to treatment - a narrative review

Abstract

The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) represents an actual revolution in the radiological field, including bone lesion imaging. Bone lesions are often detected both in healthy and oncological patients and the differential diagnosis can be challenging but decisive, because it affects the diagnostic and therapeutic process, especially in case of metastases. Several studies have already demonstrated how the integration of AI-based tools in the current clinical workflow could bring benefits to patients and to healthcare workers. AI technologies could help radiologists in early bone metastases detection, increasing the diagnostic accuracy and reducing the overdiagnosis and the number of unnecessary deeper investigations. In addition, radiomics and radiogenomics approaches could go beyond the qualitative features, visible to the human eyes, extrapolating cancer genomic and behaviour information from imaging, in order to plan a targeted and personalized treatment. In this article, we want to provide a comprehensive summary of the most promising AI applications in bone metastasis imaging and their role from diagnosis to treatment and prognosis, including the analysis of future challenges and new perspectives.