AI in Thyroid Cancer Diagnosis: Techniques, Trends, and Future Directions

There has been a growing interest in creating intelligent diagnostic systems to assist medical professionals in analyzing and processing big data for the treatment of incurable diseases. One of the key challenges in this field is detecting thyroid cancer, where advancements have been made using machine learning (ML) and big data analytics to evaluate thyroid cancer prognosis and determine a patient's risk of malignancy. This review paper summarizes a large collection of articles related to artificial intelligence (AI)-based techniques used in the diagnosis of thyroid cancer. Accordingly, a new classification was introduced to classify these techniques based on the AI algorithms used, the purpose of the framework, and the computing platforms used. Additionally, this study compares existing thyroid cancer datasets based on their features. The focus of this study is on how AI-based tools can support the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid cancer, through supervised, unsupervised, or hybrid techniques. It also highlights the progress made and the unresolved challenges in this field. Finally, the future trends and areas of focus in this field are discussed.