Artificial intelligence in hematological diagnostics: Game changer or gadget?

Journal: Blood reviews
Published Date:

Abstract

The future of clinical diagnosis and treatment of hematologic diseases will inevitably involve the integration of artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems into routine practice to support the hematologists' decision making. Several studies have shown that AI-based models can already be used to automatically differentiate cells, reliably detect malignant cell populations, support chromosome banding analysis, and interpret clinical variants, contributing to early disease detection and prognosis. However, even the best tool can become useless if it is misapplied or the results are misinterpreted. Therefore, in order to comprehensively judge and correctly apply newly developed AI-based systems, the hematologist must have a basic understanding of the general concepts of machine learning. In this review, we provide the hematologist with a comprehensive overview of various machine learning techniques, their current implementations and approaches in different diagnostic subfields (e.g., cytogenetics, molecular genetics), and the limitations and unresolved challenges of the systems.

Authors

  • Wencke Walter
    MLL Munich Leukemia Laboratory, Max-Lebsche-Platz 31, 81377 München, Germany. Electronic address: wencke.walter@mll.com.
  • Christian Pohlkamp
    MLL Munich Leukemia Laboratory, Max-Lebsche-Platz 31, 81377 München, Germany. Electronic address: christian.pohlkamp@mll.com.
  • Manja Meggendorfer
    Munich Leukemia Laboratory, Munich, Germany.
  • Niroshan Nadarajah
    MLL Munich Leukemia Laboratory, Max-Lebsche-Platz 31, 81377 München, Germany. Electronic address: niroshan.nadarajah@mll.com.
  • Wolfgang Kern
    MLL Munich Leukemia Laboratory, Munich, Germany.
  • Claudia Haferlach
    MLL Munich Leukemia Laboratory, Munich, Germany.
  • Torsten Haferlach
    MLL Munich Leukemia Laboratory, Munich, Germany.