Comment on 'Deep convolutional neural network with transfer learning for rectum toxicity prediction in cervical...

The application of machine learning (ML) presents tremendous opportunities for the field of oncology, thus we read 'Deep convolutional neural network with transfer learning for rectum toxicity prediction in cervical cancer radiotherapy: a feasibility study' with great interest. In this article, the authors used state of the art techniques: a pre-trained convolutional neural network (VGG-16 CNN), transfer learning, data augmentation, drop out and early stopping, all of which are directly responsible for the success and the excitement that these algorithms have created in other fields. We believe that the use of these techniques can offer tremendous opportunities in the field of Medical Physics and as such we would like to praise the authors for their pioneering application to the field of Radiation Oncology. That being said, given that the field of Medical Physics has unique characteristics that differentiate us from those fields where these techniques have been applied successfully, we would like to raise some points for future discussion and follow up studies that could help the community understand the limitations and nuances of deep learning techniques.