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REVIEW article

Front. Neurol.

Sec. Artificial Intelligence in Neurology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1647724

This article is part of the Research TopicTechnology Developments and Clinical Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Neurodegenerative DiseasesView all 9 articles

Progress of radiomics research on white matter hyperintensity lesions

Provisionally accepted
Lin  DuLin Du1LiePing  WangLiePing Wang1WeiGuo  LiWeiGuo Li2*DeSheng  LiDeSheng Li1*Min  ZengMin Zeng1Gang  ShenGang Shen1
  • 1Department of Radiology, Chongqing Tongliang District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing, China
  • 2Department of Acupuncture and Pain, Chongqing Tongliang District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

White matter hyperintensity (WMH) is the core imaging hallmark of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD). This phenomenon is closely related to nervous system damage, such as cognitive impairment, dementia and increased risk of stroke. However, traditional diagnostic methods have significant limitations in terms of quantitative assessment, analysis of pathological mechanisms, and clinical decision support, which severely restrict their clinical application. Through high-throughput feature extraction and comprehensive analysis of clinical, laboratory, histological, and genomic data, radiomics in its current form can not only achieve the high-precision identification and staging of WMH but also help to reveal its pathological mechanism, which has shown important value in the diagnosis, prognosis, and evaluation of WMH-related diseases. Against this backdrop, we strictly adhered to the norms of systematic literature reviews, conducting a comprehensive and transparent literature search. We also thoroughly reviewed the data using a predefined strategy and strict inclusion/exclusion criteria (detailed in the text). This article systematically reviews the progress of radiomics research in characterizing the pathological mechanism of WMH and in the early identification, classification and prognostic evaluation of related diseases, aiming to provide a theoretical basis and a technical reference for the early identification of high-risk groups, the optimization of diagnosis and treatment decision-making, and the practice of collaborative patient management.

Keywords: White matter hyperintensity (WMH), Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD), Radiomics, cognitive impairment, stroke risk

Received: 16 Jun 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Du, Wang, Li, Li, Zeng and Shen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
WeiGuo Li, Department of Acupuncture and Pain, Chongqing Tongliang District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing, China
DeSheng Li, Department of Radiology, Chongqing Tongliang District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing, China

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