A narrative review on machine learning in diagnosis and prognosis prediction for tongue squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC) is the most common subtype of oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (OCSCC), and it also has the worst prognosis. It is crucial to find an effective way to solve the challenges in diagnosis and prognosis prediction for TSCC. Machine learning (ML) has been widely used in medical research and has shown good performance. It can be used for feature extraction, feature selection, model construction, etc. Radiomics and deep learning (DL), the new components of ML, have also been utilized to explore the relationship between image features and diseases. The current study aimed to highlight the importance of ML as a potential method for addressing the challenges in diagnosis and prognosis prediction of TSCC by reviewing studies on ML in TSCC. METHODS: The studies on ML in TSCC in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure published between the dates of inception of these databases and April 30, 2022, were reviewed. KEY CONTENT AND FINDINGS: ML (including radiomics and DL) which was used in diagnosis and prognosis prediction for TSCC, has shown promising performance. CONCLUSIONS: Despite its limitations, ML is still a potential approach that can help to deal with the challenges in diagnosis and prognosis prediction for TSCC. Nevertheless, more efforts are needed to enhance the usefulness of ML in this field.