Machine Learning and Transformers for Thyroid Carcinoma Diagnosis: A Review

The growing interest in developing smart diagnostic systems to help medical experts process extensive data for treating incurable diseases has been notable. In particular, the challenge of identifying thyroid cancer (TC) has seen progress with the use of machine learning (ML) and big data analysis, incorporating Transformers to evaluate TC prognosis and determine the risk of malignancy in individuals. This review article presents a summary of various studies on AI-based approaches, especially those employing Transformers, for diagnosing TC. It introduces a new categorization system for these methods based on artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, the goals of the framework, and the computing environments used. Additionally, it scrutinizes and contrasts the available TC datasets by their features. The paper highlights the importance of AI instruments in aiding the diagnosis and treatment of TC through supervised, unsupervised, or mixed approaches, with a special focus on the ongoing importance of Transformers and large language models (LLMs) in medical diagnostics and disease management. It further discusses the progress made and the continuing obstacles in this area. Lastly, it explores future directions and focuses within this research field.