Published online Nov 14, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i42.6002
Peer-review started: August 25, 2022
First decision: September 2, 2022
Revised: September 24, 2022
Accepted: October 27, 2022
Article in press: October 27, 2022
Published online: November 14, 2022
Processing time: 76 Days and 18.1 Hours
Gastrointestinal cancer (GIC) has high morbidity and mortality as one of the main causes of cancer death. Preoperative risk stratification is critical to guide patient management, but traditional imaging studies have difficulty predicting its biological behavior. The emerging field of radiomics allows the conversion of potential pathophysiological information in existing medical images that cannot be visually recognized into high-dimensional quantitative image features. Tumor lesion characterization, therapeutic response evaluation, and survival prediction can be achieved by analyzing the relationships between these features and clinical and genetic data. In recent years, the clinical application of radiomics to GIC has increased dramatically. In this editorial, we describe the latest progress in the application of radiomics to GIC and discuss the value of its potential clinical applications, as well as its limitations and future directions.
Core Tip: In this editorial, we summarize the latest advances of radiomics in the field of gastrointestinal cancer diagnosis and treatment. Radiomics has great potential in precision treatment decision-making for gastrointestinal cancer. However, radiomics studies have had relatively marked heterogeneity in their workflow. In the future, it will be necessary to establish and promote an imaging data acquisition protocol, standardize the research workflow, and conduct multicenter prospective studies on quality control.