Artificial intelligence in breast cancer research: a systematic review and bibliometric analysis of emerging trends and future directions

Introduction

Breast cancer remains a leading cause of cancer incidence and mortality among women worldwide, with ongoing challenges in early detection, accurate diagnosis, prognosis estimation, and treatment-response assessment. Artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning and deep learning, has rapidly advanced breast cancer research by enabling analysis of high-dimensional imaging, pathological, genomic, and clinical data. However, the rapid expansion of this literature has resulted in substantial fragmentation across clinical tasks, data modalities, algorithmic paradigms, and software ecosystems. This systematic review presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of AI-driven breast cancer research published recently.