Artificial Intelligence in Medicine: A Specialty-Level Overview of Emerging AI Trends

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a turning point in medical advancement. Despite the burgeoning research in this field, there exists a general lack of overview of where AI is being most utilized. This study reviews and describes techniques and trends of AI in the major medical specialties.

A literature search was conducted through PubMed in 2024 using two different search methods. Twenty-nine medical specialties were included, including all 24 major medical board specialties and five additional subspecialties.

There were 143,578 publications involving AI identified with most these (87%) published in the last ten years (124,206) and 52% (74,239) in the last two years. Radiology and Pathology publications were the largest cohorts, 18% (25,319) and 17% (23,828), respectively. Plastic Surgery (1,053), Hepatobiliary (662), and Allergy/Immunology (449) were the least published. There has been a 10,859% growth rate in annual publications across all medical specialties, with Ophthalmology and Preventative Medicine being the fastest-growing areas of research despite Radiology and Pathology being the most researched to date.

This review underscores AI's profound impact on medical research, highlighting its significant growth and utilization across various specialties. AI's influence is most pronounced in Radiology and Pathology, but the substantial increase in publications in Ophthalmology and Preventative Medicine suggests new emerging areas of focus. The ongoing expansion of AI in medicine presents a promising horizon for addressing complex healthcare challenges, fostering a deeper and more comprehensive integration across all specialties.