Radiomics and artificial intelligence: New frontiers in medicine

Abstract

Radiomics is a new frontier of medicine based on the extraction of quantitative data from radiological images which can not be seen by radiologist's naked eye and on the use of these data for the creation of clinical decision support systems. The long-term goal of radiomics is to improve the non-invasive diagnosis of focal and diffuse diseases of different organs by understanding links between extracted quantitative imaging data and the underlying molecular and pathological characteristics of lesions. In the last decade, several studies have highlighted the enormous potential of radiomics in both tumoral and non-tumoral diseases of many organs and systems including brain, lung, breast, gastrointestinal and genitourinary tracts. The enormous potential of radiomics needs to be pursued with the methodological rigor of scientific research and by integrating radiological data with other medical disciplines, in order to improve personalized patient management.