The Role of Radiomics and Artificial Intelligence Applied to Staging PSMA PET in Assessing Prostate Cancer Aggressiveness

Background: PSMA PET is essential tool in the management of prostate cancer (PCa) patients in various clinical settings of disease. The tremendous growth of the implementation of radiomics and artificial intelligence (AI) in medical imaging techniques has led to an increasing interest in their application in prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET. The aim of this article is to systemically review the current literature that explores radiomics and AI analyses of staging PSMA PET towards its potential application in clinical practice. Methods: A systematic research of the literature on three international databases (PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) identified a total of 166 studies. An initial screening excluded 68 duplicates and 72 articles relevant to other topics. Finally, 21 studies met the inclusion criteria. Conclusions: The literature suggests that radiomic analysis could improve the characterization of tumor aggressiveness, the prediction of extra-capsular extension, and seminal vesicles involvement. Moreover, AI models could contribute to predicting BCR after radical treatment. Limitations regarding heterogeneous objectives of investigation, and methodological standardization of radiomics analysis still represent the main obstacle to overcome in order to see these technology break through into daily clinical practice.