Impact of artificial intelligence on prognosis, shared decision-making, and precision medicine for patients with inflammatory bowel disease: a perspective and expert opinion

Abstract

Introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to impact all facets of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) management, including disease assessment, treatment decisions, discovery and development of new biomarkers and therapeutics, as well as clinician–patient communication. Areas covered: This perspective paper provides an overview of the application of AI in the clinical management of IBD through a review of the currently available AI models that could be potential tools for prognosis, shared decision-making, and precision medicine. This overview covers models that measure treatment response based on statistical or machine-learning methods, or a combination of the two. We briefly discuss a computational model that allows integration of immune/biological system knowledge with mathematical modeling and also involves a ‘digital twin’, which allows measurement of temporal trends in mucosal inflammatory activity for predicting treatment response. A viewpoint on AI-enabled wearables and nearables and their use to improve IBD management is also included. Expert opinion: Although challenges regarding data quality, privacy, and security; ethical concerns; technical limitations; and regulatory barriers remain to be fully addressed, a growing body of evidence suggests a tremendous potential for integration of AI into daily clinical practice to enable precision medicine and shared decision-making.