Deep Transfer Learning for Kidney Cancer Diagnosis

Incurable diseases continue to pose major challenges to global healthcare systems, with their prevalence shaped by lifestyle, economic, social, and genetic factors. Among these, kidney disease remains a critical global health issue, requiring ongoing research to improve early diagnosis and treatment. In recent years, deep learning (DL) has shown promise in medical imaging and diagnostics, driving significant progress in automatic kidney cancer (KC) detection. However, the success of DL models depends heavily on the availability of high-quality, domain-specific datasets, which are often limited and expensive to acquire. Moreover, DL models demand substantial computational power and storage, restricting their real-world clinical use. To overcome these barriers, transfer learning (TL) has emerged as an effective approach, enabling the reuse of pre-trained models from related domains to enhance KC diagnosis. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of DL-based TL frameworks for KC detection, systematically reviewing key methodologies, their advantages, and limitations, and analyzing their practical performance. It further discusses challenges in applying TL to medical imaging and highlights emerging trends that could influence future research. This review demonstrates the transformative role of TL in precision medicine, particularly oncology, by improving diagnostic accuracy, lowering computational demands, and supporting the integration of AI-powered tools in healthcare. The insights provided offer valuable guidance for researchers and practitioners, paving the way for future advances in KC diagnostics and personalized treatment strategies.