Predicting Breast Cancer Recurrence Using Machine Learning Techniques: A Systematic Review

Background: Recurrence is an important cornerstone in breast cancer behavior, intrinsically related to mortality. In spite of its relevance, it is rarely recorded in the majority of breast cancer datasets, which makes research in its prediction more difficult. Objectives: To evaluate the performance of machine learning techniques applied to the prediction of breast cancer recurrence. Material and Methods: Revision of published works that used machine learning techniques in local and open source databases between 1997 and 2014. Results: The revision showed that it is difficult to obtain a representative dataset for breast cancer recurrence and there is no consensus on the best set of predictors for this disease. High accuracy results are often achieved, yet compromising sensitivity. The missing data and class imbalance problems are rarely addressed and most often the chosen performance metrics are inappropriate for the context. Discussion and Conclusions: Although different techniques have been used, prediction of breast cancer recurrence is still an open problem. The combination of different machine learning techniques, along with the definition of standard predictors for breast cancer recurrence seem to be the main future directions to obtain better results.