Highlights
- •Natural language processing is a wide range of techniques that allows computers to interact with human text. It has been increasingly utilized in the medical field with increased reliance on electronic health records.
- •NLP is particularly suited to benefit the field of radiology due to the field's reliance on written communication of findings through the radiology report.
- •Increased imaging volume will continue to necessitate the incorporation of NLP based applications to improve workflow in radiology.
- •Changes to the field such as a push toward standardized reporting can optimize the data that is available to efficiently develop these applications.
Abstract
Natural language processing (NLP) is a wide range of techniques that allows computers
to interact with human text. Applications of NLP in everyday life include language
translation aids, chat bots, and text prediction. It has been increasingly utilized
in the medical field with increased reliance on electronic health records. As findings
in radiology are primarily communicated via text, the field is particularly suited
to benefit from NLP based applications. Furthermore, rapidly increasing imaging volume
will continue to increase burden on clinicians, emphasizing the need for improvements
in workflow. In this article, we highlight the numerous non-clinical, provider focused,
and patient focused applications of NLP in radiology. We also comment on challenges
associated with development and incorporation of NLP based applications in radiology
as well as potential future directions.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 05, 2023
Accepted:
February 20,
2023
Received in revised form:
February 10,
2023
Received:
December 19,
2022
Identification
Copyright
© 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
