A Review of Causality for Learning Algorithms in Medical Image Analysis
This is a review paper that synthesizes existing work on causality for medical image analysis, highlighting its potential but noting limited practical adoption.
The paper reviews how causal analysis methods can address robustness issues like domain shifts in medical image analysis algorithms, finding that while causality has potential to mitigate critical problems for clinical translation, uptake and downstream research have been limited.
Medical image analysis is a vibrant research area that offers doctors and medical practitioners invaluable insight and the ability to accurately diagnose and monitor disease. Machine learning provides an additional boost for this area. However, machine learning for medical image analysis is particularly vulnerable to natural biases like domain shifts that affect algorithmic performance and robustness. In this paper we analyze machine learning for medical image analysis within the framework of Technology Readiness Levels and review how causal analysis methods can fill a gap when creating robust and adaptable medical image analysis algorithms. We review methods using causality in medical imaging AI/ML and find that causal analysis has the potential to mitigate critical problems for clinical translation but that uptake and clinical downstream research has been limited so far.