Publication
Artificial intelligence for brain cancer management
Saibaba G, Giwa O, Booth TC, Kiskova Simkova T, Uka A, Skuka F, Javed B, Ferreira D, Ferreira S, Sengupta J, Karaman M, Calvo GF, Li X, Mitrovic T, Occhipinti A, Angione C, Missaoui N, Frenkel Morgenstern M,
European Journal of Cancer 247 (2026) 116991
MOLAB authors
Fernández Calvo, Gabriel. 
Abstract
Brain cancers, especially glioblastoma, remain among the deadliest adult cancers, with outcomes largely unchanged
despite multimodal treatments. This review summarizes cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) and
machine learning (ML) advances transforming neuro-oncology in diagnostics, molecular profiling, treatment
planning, and monitoring. Key findings show AI-driven radiomics and deep learning (DL) reaching over 90%
accuracy in tumour segmentation and grading from MRI and whole-slide images, non-invasive IDH/MGMT
prediction through liquid biopsy (LB) analysis, and augmented reality-guided resection that maximizes tumour
removal while safeguarding expressive cortex. Treatment planning benefits from hybrid Convolutional Neural
Networks (CNN)-Transformer models for immunotherapy stratification and blood-brain barrier penetrant drug
repurposing, while real-time progression detection via multimodal integration helps differentiate true progression
from pseudoprogression. Despite these advances, significant challenges remain, including data scarcity and
imbalance in rare subtypes, domain shift due to imaging variability, black-box model behaviour eroding trust,
regulatory requirements for prospective validation, and workflow fragmentation. Emerging solutions include
federated and transfer learning for scalable model development, explainable AI (such as SHapley Additive exPlanations
(SHAP) and attention interpretation for vision transformers) to foster clinician-AI collaboration, and
foundation models pretrained on large-scale neuro-oncology datasets to facilitate personalization. Achieving this
potential will depend on harmonized multi-omics registries, strong ethical and regulatory governance, and
deliberate human-AI collaboration frameworks to integrate these tools into precision neuro-oncology.