Application of Artificial Intelligence in Symptom Monitoring in Adult Cancer Survivorship: A Systematic Review.

Purpose: The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care may afford new avenues for personalized and patient-centered care. This systematic review explored the role of AI in symptom monitoring for adult cancer survivors.

Methods: A comprehensive search was performed from inception to November 2023 in seven bibliographic databases and three clinical trial registries. This PROSPERO registered review (ID: CRD42023476027) assessed reports of empirical research studies of AI use in symptom monitoring (physical and psychological symptoms) across all cancer types in adults.

Results: A total of 18,530 reports were identified, of which 41 met review criteria and were analyzed. Included studies were predominantly published between 2021 and 2023, originated in the United States (39.0%) and Japan (14.6%), and primarily used cohort designs (80.5%), followed by cross-sectional designs (12.2%). The mean sample size was 617.14 (standard deviation = 1,401.37), with most studies primarily including multiple tumor types (31.7%) or breast cancer survivors (26.8%). Machine learning algorithms (43.9%) was the most used AI method, followed by natural language processing (29.3%), AI-driven chatbots (17.1%), and decision support tools (9.8%). The most common inputs to the AI algorithms were textual data, patient-reported symptoms, and physiologic measurements. The most examined symptom was pain (34.2% of studies), followed by fatigue and nausea (17.1% of studies each). Overall, the review showed increasing AI technology use in the prediction and monitoring of cancer symptoms.

Conclusion: AI is being used to enhance symptom monitoring in various cancer settings. When considering integration into clinical practice, standardization of data capture, the use of analytics, investing in infrastructure, and the end-user experience should be considered for successful implementation and monitoring the improvement of patient outcomes.