This Perspective highlights how quantum algorithms-such as Quantum Support Vector Machines, Quantum Principal Component Analysis, and quantum generative models-could enhance key tasks in precision oncology, including multi-omics integration, spatial transcriptomics, and neoantigen prediction.
Abstract
Cancer multi-omics faces challenges in handling the scale, complexity, and heterogeneity of multi-omics data, limiting progress in variant interpretation, tumor classification, and modeling cancer evolution. Quantum computing offers a new paradigm using superposition, entanglement, and quantum interference to efficiently explore vast solution spaces. This Perspective highlights how quantum algorithms-such as Quantum Support Vector Machines, Quantum Principal Component Analysis, and quantum generative models-could enhance key tasks in precision oncology, including multi-omics integration, spatial transcriptomics, and neoantigen prediction. Current technical barriers, like qubit noise and limited quantum memory, are discussed alongside strategies to connect quantum computing with biomedical research. Interdisciplinary collaboration will be essential to realizing quantum advantage in cancer multi-omics.
Quantum machine learning (QML) has emerged as a promising approach for analyzing the complex, high-dimensional data encountered in oncology, yet research in this area remains fragmented. This systematic literature review synthesizes current applications of QML in cancer care. Following PRISMA guidelines, six databases were searched for peer-reviewed English-language studies published between 2020 and 2026. Of the 212 records identified, 49 studies met the inclusion criteria after screening and quality assessment. The findings show that QML research is dominated by classification and detection tasks, while segmentation is beginning to emerge. Breast cancer and brain tumors are the most frequently investigated domains. Hybrid quantum-classical models, particularly quantum kernel methods, quantum neural networks, and quantum convolutional neural networks, are the predominant approaches. The main barriers to adoption are hardware limitations, including quantum noise, limited qubit availability, and reliance on simulators. Overall, QML in oncology remains in its early stages of development, with limited clinical validation, insufficient model interpretability, and little evidence of a clear quantum advantage. Future research should prioritize evaluation on real quantum hardware, larger and more diverse clinical datasets, standardized benchmarking against classical methods, and closer collaboration between computer scientists and oncology experts to facilitate clinical translation.
K. I. Ghauth, Yanche Ari Kustiawan· Machine Learning and Knowled...· 0 citations
Introduction In recent years, high-dimensional clinical and genomic data have gained significant importance for prognosis and personalized medicine in breast cancer. But the use of quantum machine learning (QML) on such data is limited by the availability of few qubits, the computation time of quantum simulation, and dimensionality reduction. This work systematically compares several QML architectures for breast cancer classification in the presence of realistic and simulator constraints. Methods The experiments were performed on a dataset of METABRIC breast cancer patients (2,509 patients). After handling missing values and one-hot encoding, there were 63 features in the processed data set. The feature space was reduced by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to 12, 4 and 2 components for the implementations of quantum computers, respectively, with 56.10 ± 0.14%, 26.78 ± 0.57% and 16.23 ± 0.33% of the variance retained. Three QML models were tested: Quantum Neural Networks (QNN), Quantum K-Nearest Neighbors (QKNN), and Quantum Support Vector Machines (QSVM), with the models being simulated. Seven classical classification models were tested: Logistic Regression, SVM with RBF kernel, K-Nearest Neighbors, Random Forest, XGBoost, LightGBM and Multilayer Perceptron, both with PCA-matched and full 63-feature representation. All primary results are reported with 5-fold cross validation. Results Among the evaluated QML architectures, QKNN using 12 principal components achieved the strongest performance, attaining an accuracy of **75.11% ± 3.76%**, an F1-score of **0.7088 ± 0.0433**, and a ROC-AUC of **0.8148 ± 0.0394**. Even though all of the QML models performed significantly poorly in comparison to classical models trained on the entire 63-feature data set, the latter models were able to achieve about **94% accuracy** with XGBoost, Random Forest, and Logistic Regression. The comparison also showed the effect of information loss due to PCA is significant in predictive performance in both classical and quantum models. Discussion The results show that for high dimensional breast cancer data, currently available simulator-based QML models can learn meaningful patterns with limited quantum resources, but are not as effective as powerful classical machine learning models when complete feature representations are available. The study does not report any sort of quantum advantage or clinical use, but rather a benchmark of current QML architectures that has been rigorously calculated and repeated, with a focus on the impact of dimensionality reduction, validation approaches, and simulator limitations, as well as outlining challenges that need to be overcome prior to practical implementation on real quantum hardware.
Saartak Allena, S. S., Balaji Chandrasekaran· Frontiers in Artificial Inte...· 0 citations
Precision phenomics is introduced as a unifying framework that links molecular, spatial, functional, and clinical characteristics of tumors to support personalized cancer management and has the potential to transform lung cancer research and improve patient outcomes.
Machine learning is being increasingly used for the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. However, models often struggle with biological data due to high dimensionality, limited sample diversity, and complex feature interactions. Recent works have investigated the potential for quantum machine learning models to exhibit improved performance over classical models on this kind of complex data, but have often lacked rigorous empirical evaluation of quantum advantage. In this work, we develop a methodology for fair benchmarking of quantum and classical machine learning models, based on the Red Cedar quantum machine learning and resource estimation framework and AutoML-optimized classical neural networks. We assess the potential for quantum advantage in machine learning across tabular, omics, and spatial oncological datasets drawn from the existing quantum machine learning literature, with a range of preprocessing methods, and find no evidence of quantum advantage. Our results suggest that the field should prioritize analyzing higher-dimensional, more biologically realistic datasets to make meaningful progress toward practical quantum advantage in oncological classification problems.
Sydney Leither, Thomas Lubinski, Michael Kubal et al.· 0 citations
The discussion on precision oncology integrates multiomics technologies and artificial intelligence, specifically addressing biomarker discovery and personalized therapeutic strategies. In this way, clinical translation and multiomics biomarkers are reconstructed challenges such as heterogeneity, validate, algorithmic bias, regulatory complexities, and ethical issues. This review critically evaluates how advanced technologies operating in an integrated manner facilitate precision oncology by supporting fields such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and radiomics. To conduct the study, we performed literature search using standard databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus, focusing on papers published between 2020 and 2025. We address the all aspects of biomarker identification and clinical applications; we employed a five-stage framework comprising multiparametric data generation, integration, biomarker discovery, rigorous validation, and regulatory implementation. To further examine this review, we have employed emerging computational approaches, including machine learning and deep learning and graph neural networks alongside regulatory frameworks and ethical, legal, and social considerations. Discussing translation barriers, we consider factors such as limited reproducibility, validation, and critical discussion particularly studies. Ultimately, a future model based on standardized, validated, and transparent learning strategies accelerates and fosters the development of clinically reliable standards. Our review provides an integrative roadmap for modern, multiomics-driven biomarker approaches in precision oncology practice.
Ujwal Havelikar, Atharva A. Shinde, Hrushikesh Mhaismale et al.· Omics· 0 citations
Cancer remains the leading cause of death worldwide, presenting substantial challenges to precision medicine due to its complex heterogeneity. Radiogenomics, as a method combining quantitative radiologic data with genomic information, provides a robust analysis framework to assess tumor heterogeneity and cancer progression. Here, we summarize the application of radiogenomics into two key fusion methods: feature-level and decision-level fusion. Feature-level fusion combines multimodal data into a rich feature set to improve the predictive power of models, while decision-level fusion integrates decision results from multiple independent models to improve robustness and reliability. Furthermore, we explore the integration of radiomics with various omics technologies, including transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics. This integration enables a deeper understanding of the dynamic tumor microenvironment, metabolic dysregulation, and cancer progression mechanisms. Finally, we provide a detailed overview of publicly available datasets relevant to radiogenomics research, such as The Cancer Imaging Archive, cBioPortal, UK Biobank and Human Connectome Project; and further describe multiple types of omics data and sample characteristics for each resource for the benefit to readers. In summary, this review charts a path beyond radiogenomics by advancing radiomics and multi-omics horizons to transform precision medicine in cancer.
Yu-man Chen, Huiqin Li, Silu Chen et al.· Journal of genetics and geno...· 0 citations