A Review of Deep Learning Techniques for Lung Cancer Screening and Diagnosis Based on CT Images

One of the most common and deadly diseases in the world is lung cancer. Only early identification of lung cancer can increase a patient's probability of survival. A frequently used modality for the screening and diagnosis of lung cancer is computed tomography (CT) imaging, which provides a detailed scan of the lung. In line with the advancement of computer-assisted systems, deep learning techniques have been extensively explored to help in interpreting the CT images for lung cancer identification. Hence, the goal of this review is to provide a detailed review of the deep learning techniques that were developed for screening and diagnosing lung cancer. This review covers an overview of deep learning (DL) techniques, the suggested DL techniques for lung cancer applications, and the novelties of the reviewed methods. This review focuses on two main methodologies of deep learning in screening and diagnosing lung cancer, which are classification and segmentation methodologies. The advantages and shortcomings of current deep learning models will also be discussed. The resultant analysis demonstrates that there is a significant potential for deep learning methods to provide precise and effective computer-assisted lung cancer screening and diagnosis using CT scans. At the end of this review, a list of potential future works regarding improving the application of deep learning is provided to spearhead the advancement of computer-assisted lung cancer diagnosis systems.