A systematic survey of fuzzy deep learning for uncertain medical data

Abstract Intelligent medical industry is in a rapid stage of development around the world, followed by are the expanding market size and basic theories of intelligent medical diagnosis and decision-making. Deep learning models have achieved good practical results in medical domain. However, traditional deep learning is almost calculated and developed by crisp values, while imprecise, uncertain, and vague medical data is common in the process of diagnosis and treatment. It is important and significant to review the contributions of fuzzy deep learning for uncertain medical data, because fuzzy deep learning that originated from fuzzy sets, can effectively deal with uncertain and inaccurate information, providing new viewpoints for alleviating the presence of noise, artifact or high dimensional unstructured information in uncertain medical data. Therefore, taking focus on the intersection of both different fuzzy deep learning models and several types of uncertain medical data, the paper first constructs four types of frameworks of fuzzy deep learning models used for uncertain medical data, and investigates the status from three aspects: fuzzy deep learning models, uncertain medical data and application scenarios. Then the performance evaluation metrics of fuzzy deep learning models are analyzed in details. This work has some original points: (1) four types of frameworks of applying fuzzy deep learning models for uncertain medical data are first proposed. (2) Seven fuzzy deep learning models, five types of uncertain medical data, and five application scenarios are reviewed in details, respectively. (3) The advantages, challenges, and future research directions of fuzzy deep learning for uncertain medical data are critically analyzed, providing valuable suggestions for further deep research.