Pathology Foundation Models.

Abstract

Pathology plays a crucial role in diagnosing and evaluating patient tissue samples obtained via surgeries and biopsies. The advent of whole slide scanners and the development of deep learning technologies have considerably advanced this field, promoting extensive research and development in pathology artificial intelligence (AI). These advancements have contributed to reduced workload of pathologists and supported decision-making in treatment plans. Large-scale AI models, known as foundation models (FMs), are more accurate and applicable to various tasks than traditional AI. Such models have recently emerged and expanded their application scope in healthcare. Numerous FMs have been developed in pathology, with reported applications in various tasks, such as disease and rare cancer diagnoses, patient survival prognosis prediction, biomarker expression prediction, and scoring of the immunohistochemical expression intensity. However, several challenges persist in the clinical application of FMs, which healthcare professionals, as users, must be aware of. Research to address these challenges is ongoing. In the future, the development of generalist medical AI, which integrates pathology FMs with FMs from other medical domains, is expected to progress, effectively utilizing AI in real clinical settings to promote precision and personalized medicine.