Machine learning in breast cancer imaging: a review on data, models and methods

Medical imaging research has experienced significant growth over the past decade, particularly in the fields of computer vision and pattern recognition. Computational approaches have been proposed to address the challenges in breast cancer detection, classification and segmentation. However, recent advancements in computational technology such as machine learning (ML) methods have dramatically changed the landscape of breast cancer imaging research. This survey aims to provide a compilation of information for future breast cancer imaging researchers by 1) comprehensively examining how various ML techniques are being used to address the main challenges in breast cancer imaging; 2) providing an in-depth discussion and review of publicly available datasets for the development and evaluation of novel breast cancer detection, classification and segmentation approaches; and 3) outlining current evaluation metrics used by breast cancer imaging researchers. The insights and findings presented in this survey will serve as a valuable resource for researchers and clinicians interested in breast cancer imaging. By providing an overview of the current state-of-the-art techniques and highlighting areas for future research, we hope to facilitate the development of more accurate and effective breast cancer imaging ML techniques, and contribute to advancing our understanding and improving the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.