Musculoskeletal trauma and artificial intelligence: current trends and projections

Musculoskeletal trauma accounts for a significant fraction of emergency department visits and patients seeking urgent care, with a high financial cost to society. Diagnostic imaging is indispensable in the workup and management of trauma patients. However, diagnostic imaging represents a complex multifaceted system, with many aspects of its workflow prone to inefficiencies or human error. Recent technological innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning have shown promise to revolutionize our systems for providing medical care to patients. This review will provide a general overview of the current state of artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in different aspects of trauma imaging and provide a vision for how such applications could be leveraged to enhance our diagnostic imaging systems and optimize patient outcomes.