Multimodal analysis of whole slide images in colorectal cancer

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Jitendra Jonnagaddala - , University of New South Wales, NMC Royal Hospital, SREDH Consortium (Author)
  • Miljana Shulajkovska - , J. Stefan Institute (Author)
  • Anton Gradišek - , J. Stefan Institute (Author)
  • Toni Rose Jue - , University of New South Wales (Author)
  • Qifeng Zhou - , University of Texas at Arlington (Author)
  • Yuzhi Guo - , University of Texas at Arlington (Author)
  • Jamil Mahmoud El Chayeb - , NMC Royal Hospital (Author)
  • Ruijiang Li - , Stanford University (Author)
  • Jana Lipkova - , University of California at Irvine (Author)
  • Jakob Nikolas Kather - , Department of Internal Medicine I, Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health, University of Leeds, National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg (Author)
  • Junzhou Huang - , University of Texas at Arlington (Author)

Abstract

Multimodal models have enabled the integration of digital pathology, radiology, clinical information, and omics data to enhance Colorectal cancer (CRC) care. This systematic review critically appraises Multimodal digital pathology techniques applied in CRC, their performance, and contrasts them with foundation models. We identified and screened 1601 studies published between January 2014 and August 2024 using PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and IEEE Xplore (PROSPERO protocol: 635831). The quality and bias of the 22 eligible studies were assessed using the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. Our findings suggest that majority of the studies integrated different modalities to enhance diagnostic accuracy and survival prediction. Various fusion techniques have been used to extract novel features. Most studies did not undertake external validation. Compared to unimodal models, multimodal approaches demonstrate superior performance but challenges remain, including constructing multimodal datasets, managing data heterogeneity, ensuring temporal alignment, determining modality weighting, and improving interpretability.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number719
Journal npj digital medicine
Volume8
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 24 Nov 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-3730-5348/work/201625041