The role of AI and virtual environments in the Future Breast Unit

Artificial intelligence (AI) has offered significant advances in medicine from its beginnings, with expert systems that complemented decision-making, to its current use, present in many applications where we are not fully aware. In this article, we are going to review and analyse different real uses of AI, which will enable us to correctly frame the vectors of present and future applications. From those already known in management, assistance in decision-making, radiomics, or pathomics to more recent ones such as virtual and augmented reality, remote monitoring, or the prediction of morphological results after surgery. Over time, the development of machine learning algorithms and the exponential increase of available health data will allow AI to provide more accurate and personalised diagnoses, development of new therapies and drugs, significantly reducing research and testing times. For this to be possible, greater communication and cooperation between healthcare professionals and the world of engineering will be necessary, starting in the educational field where there is a need to train professionals in engineering and biomedicine capable of tackling challenges with a complete vision, thus reducing the wall of technical understanding and deepening the development of useful applications.