[Artificial intelligence for lymph node metastasis prediction in gastric cancer: research progress]

Gastric cancer is a common tumor in China, and lymph node metastasis (LNM) is an independent prognostic factor for it. Accurately determining the risk of LNM in gastric cancer can help to formulate the treatment plan and estimate its staging and prognosis preoperatively. Existing means for evaluating LNM in gastric cancer have shortcomings such as low accuracy and high subjectivity. In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to be used in medical research and clinical fields, which is of great significance in the era of precise individualized medicine. Combined with multimodal data including clinical, imaging, pathomics and molecular information, AI can improve the accuracy of LNM diagnosis and assist clinical decision-making, which has made significant progress recently. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the history and status of AI for LNM prediction in gastric cancer, and to discuss the challenges and development directions.