Natural Language Processing for Breast Imaging: A Systematic Review

Natural Language Processing (NLP) has gained prominence in diagnostic radiology, offering a promising tool for improving breast imaging triage, diagnosis, lesion characterization, and treatment management in breast cancer and other breast diseases. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in NLP for breast imaging, covering the main techniques and applications in this field. Specifically, we discuss various NLP methods used to extract relevant information from clinical notes, radiology reports, and pathology reports and their potential impact on the accuracy and efficiency of breast imaging. In addition, we reviewed the state-of-the-art in NLP-based decision support systems for breast imaging, highlighting the challenges and opportunities of NLP applications for breast imaging in the future. Overall, this review underscores the potential of NLP in enhancing breast imaging care and offers insights for clinicians and researchers interested in this exciting and rapidly evolving field.