Artificial intelligence applied to radiation oncology

Performing randomised comparative clinical trials in radiation oncology remains a challenge when new treatment modalities become available. One of the most recent examples is the lack of phase III trials demonstrating the superiority of intensity-modulated radiation therapy in most of its current indications. A new paradigm is developing that consists in the mining of large databases to answer clinical or translational issues. Beyond national databases (such as SEER or NCDB), that often lack the necessary level of details on the population studied or the treatments performed, electronic health records can be used to create detailed phenotypic profiles of any patients. In parallel, the Record-and-Verify Systems used in radiation oncology precisely document the planned and performed treatments. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning algorithms can be used to incrementally analyse these data in order to generate hypothesis to better personalize treatments. This review discusses how these methods have already been used in previous studies. (c) 2017 Societe francaise de radiotherapie oncologique (SFRO). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.