Application of deep learning radiomics in oral squamous cell carcinoma—Extracting more information from medical images using advanced feature analysis

Objective To conduct a systematic review with meta-analyses to assess the recent scientific literature addressing the application of deep learning radiomics in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Materials and methods Electronic and manual literature retrieval was performed using PubMed, Web of Science, EMbase, Ovid-MEDLINE, and IEEE databases from 2012 to 2023. The ROBINS-I tool was used for quality evaluation; random-effects model was used; and results were reported according to the PRISMA statement. Results A total of 26 studies involving 64,731 medical images were included in quantitative synthesis. The meta-analysis showed that, the pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.88 (95%CI: 0.87∼0.88) and 0.80 (95%CI: 0.80∼0.81), respectively. Deeks’ asymmetry test revealed there existed slight publication bias (P = 0.03). Conclusions The advances in the application of radiomics combined with learning algorithm in OSCC were reviewed, including diagnosis and differential diagnosis of OSCC, efficacy assessment and prognosis prediction. The demerits of deep learning radiomics at the current stage and its future development direction aimed at medical imaging diagnosis were also summarized and analyzed at the end of the article.