Cited by 662Radiomics and Machine Learning in Medical ImagingArtificial Intelligence in Healthcare and EducationMachine Learning in Healthcare

Harnessing multimodal data integration to advance precision oncology

Open access
Boehm, Kevin M., Khosravi, Pegah, Vanguri, Rami, Gao, Jianjiong, Shah, Sohrab P.·2022·Nature Reviews Cancer

Abstract

Advances in quantitative biomarker development have accelerated new forms of data-driven insights for patients with cancer. However, most approaches are limited to a single mode of data, leaving integrated approaches across modalities relatively underdeveloped. Multimodal integration of advanced molecular diagnostics, radiological and histological imaging, and codified clinical data presents opportunities to advance precision oncology beyond genomics and standard molecular techniques. However, most medical datasets are still too sparse to be useful for the training of modern machine learning techniques, and significant challenges remain before this is remedied. Combined efforts of data engineering, computational methods for analysis of heterogeneous data and instantiation of synergistic data models in biomedical research are required for success. In this Perspective, we offer our opinions on synthesizing complementary modalities of data with emerging multimodal artificial intelligence methods. Advancing along this direction will result in a reimagined class of multimodal biomarkers to propel the field of precision oncology in the coming decade.

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Crossref · 10.1038/s41568-021-00408-3

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  • If underlying data contains complementary rather than mutual information, explanations should improve.

    “If underlying data contains complementary rather than mutual information, explanations should improve7.”

    From Orchestrating explainable artificial intelligence for multimodal and longitudinal data in medical imaging (2024) · cites this paper as [7]

    The Introduction says complementary, rather than fully mutual, information can improve multimodal inference. It does not say explanations improve; the section on interpretability instead describes explaining multimodal models as a separate challenge. No page numbers were available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Significantly high costs and extensive data collection requirements for LLM training present major challenges in establishing foundation models for biomedical learning, particularly in collecting paired multimodal datasets from individual patients.

    “The significantly high costs and extensive data collection requirements for LLM training present major challenges in establishing foundation models for biomedical learning, particularly in collecting paired multimodal datasets from individual patients [199].”

    From Challenges in AI-driven Biomedical Multimodal Data Fusion and Analysis (2025) · cites this paper as [199]

    Split into 2 atoms — 0 confirmed, 2 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • AI-augmented pipelines have the potential to reshape how we diagnose and treat cancer, ushering in a more data-driven era of precision oncology.

    “AI-augmented pipelines have the potential to reshape how we diagnose and treat cancer, ushering in a more data-driven era of pre­ cision oncology [52].”
  • Obtaining sufficient paired multimodal data in healthcare is challenging due to linking distinct modality-specific resources to the same patient or clinical encounter and inherent data fragmentation in healthcare systems.

    “In healthcare, obtaining sufficient paired data is challenging due to the complexities associated with linking distinct modality-specific resources to the same patient or clinical encounter26, coupled with inherent data fragmentation in healthcare systems27.”
  • In oncology and cancer biomarker discovery, integrating omics within multimodal AI frameworks has demonstrated improved performance.

    “In oncology [27] and cancer biomarker discovery [26], integrating omics within multimodal AI frameworks has demonstrated improved performance”

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Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. [103]Gundersen G, Dumitrascu B, Ash JT & Engelhardt BE End-to-end training of deep probabilistic CCA for joint modeling of paired biomedical observations, in Proceedings of The 35th Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence Conference 945– 955 (Tel Aviv, Israel, 2020).
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Authors
Boehm, K. M., Khosravi, P., Vanguri, R., Gao, J., & Shah, S. P.
Affiliations
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (US)
Corresponding author
Shah, Sohrab P.
Venue
Nature Reviews Cancer
Published
2021-10-18
Volume
22
Issue
2
Pages
114-126
ISSN
  • 1474-175X (ISSN-L)
  • 1474-1768
OpenAlex
W3205594709
Cited by
662
References
173
Citations by year
2026: 183 · 2025: 195 · 2024: 134 · 2023: 104 · 2022: 44 · 2021: 2
FWCI
11.60
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature reviews. Cancer (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Cancer Institute (F30CA257414, P30CA008748)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM007739)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Radiomics and Machine Learning in Medical Imaging
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Machine Learning in Healthcare
Keywords
multimodal data integration, precision oncology, multimodal biomarkers, multimodal learning, radiological imaging, histological imaging, molecular diagnosis, clinical data, data sparsity, cancer prognosis, treatment management
MeSH terms
Artificial Intelligence, Humans, Medical Oncology, Neoplasms, Genomics, Precision Medicine

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