Artificial intelligence-based pathological analysis of liver cancer: Current advancements and interpretative strategies

In recent years, significant advances have been achieved in liver cancer management with the development of artificial intelligence (AI). AI-based pathological analysis can extract crucial information from whole slide images to assist clinicians in all aspects from diagnosis to prognosis and molecular profiling. However, AI techniques have a “black box” nature, which means that interpretability is of utmost importance because it is key to ensuring the reliability of the methods and building trust among clinicians for actual clinical implementation. In this paper, we provide an overview of current technical advancements in the AI-based pathological analysis of liver cancer, and delve into the strategies used in recent studies to unravel the “black box” of AI's decision-making process.