Cancer remains a major global health challenge, necessitating the development of accurate, scalable, and clinically reliable diagnostic approaches. Artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly enhanced cancer detection through advanced analysis of medical imaging, histopathology, and multi-omics data. However, conventional AI models face limitations related to computational scalability, optimization complexity, and data heterogeneity. Quantum computing introduces a fundamentally different computational paradigm based on superposition, entanglement, and probabilistic state evolution. The integration of quantum computing with machine learning referred to as Quantum Artificial Intelligence (QAI) has emerged as a promising approach to address these challenges. This review critically evaluates the role of QAI in cancer detection through a systematic analysis of literature published between 2015 and 2026. The findings suggest that QAI can enhance feature representation, accelerate optimization processes, and improve predictive performance. Hybrid quantum-classical models show potential in tumor classification, multi-omics integration, and real-time clinical decision-making. Despite these advances, significant challenges remain, including hardware limitations, lack of large-scale validation, and ethical concerns. Overall, QAI represents a promising yet emerging paradigm with potential to transform early cancer detection and precision oncology. This review uniquely synthesizes quantum-AI approaches in oncology, emphasizing hybrid quantum-classical models as the most practical translational pathway for clinical adoption.
Cancer remains a major global health challenge, necessitating the development of accurate, scalable, and clinically reliable diagnostic approaches. Artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly enhanced cancer detection through advanced analysis of medical imaging, histopathology, and multi-omics data. However, conventional AI models face limitations related to computational scalability, optimization complexity, and data heterogeneity. Quantum computing introduces a fundamentally different computational paradigm based on superposition, entanglement, and probabilistic state evolution. The integration of quantum computing with machine learning referred to as Quantum Artificial Intelligence (QAI) has emerged as a promising approach to address these challenges. This review critically evaluates the role of QAI in cancer detection through a systematic analysis of literature published between 2015 and 2026. The findings suggest that QAI can enhance feature representation, accelerate optimization processes, and improve predictive performance. Hybrid quantum-classical models show potential in tumor classification, multi-omics integration, and real-time clinical decision-making. Despite these advances, significant challenges remain, including hardware limitations, lack of large-scale validation, and ethical concerns. Overall, QAI represents a promising yet emerging paradigm with potential to transform early cancer detection and precision oncology. This review uniquely synthesizes quantum-AI approaches in oncology, emphasizing hybrid quantum-classical models as the most practical translational pathway for clinical adoption.
Breast cancer continues to pose a formidable global health challenge, claiming countless lives each year and highlighting the urgent need for early and precise detection. Timely diagnosis is critical for improving treatment outcomes and survival rates, yet conventional screening and diagnostic methods often fall short in handling complex medical data efficiently. Over the past two decades, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have revolutionized breast cancer detection by analyzing medical imaging, histopathology, and genomic profiles. Despite their success, these classical approaches are constrained by high computational costs, reliance on large annotated datasets, and reduced generalization when data is limited or heterogeneous. Quantum Machine Learning (QML) has emerged as a transformative paradigm, integrating quantum computing principles—such as superposition, entanglement, and quantum parallelism—with classical learning frameworks to overcome these limitations. This survey provides a comprehensive overview of QML applications in breast cancer detection by reviewing key methodologies and advancements. It begins with a discussion of the clinical profile, treatment approaches, and recent epidemiological trends of breast cancer. Subsequently, it examines traditional AI and ML techniques used in diagnostic modeling, followed by emerging QML frameworks that leverage quantum principles for enhanced learning and efficiency. The paper concludes by outlining current challenges in QML research, including hardware constraints, noise sensitivity, and the lack of standardized evaluation benchmarks.
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.
The convergence of quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI) presents a paradigm shift in healthcare, revolutionizing complex biological simulations, genomic data processing, and drug discovery innovations. Traditional computational methods, despite their advancements, often struggle with the sheer scale and complexity of biological data, limiting the speed and accuracy of medical breakthroughs. Quantum computing, with its ability to process vast datasets exponentially faster than classical computers, coupled with AI's predictive capabilities, offers a transformative solution for accelerating biomedical research and clinical applications. This paper explores quantum machine learning’s role in optimizing AI-driven molecular dynamics simulations for drug discovery. By leveraging quantum-enhanced algorithms, researchers can rapidly model molecular interactions, analyze drug-receptor binding affinities, and predict pharmacokinetics with unprecedented precision. Additionally, we examine quantum-assisted deep learning models for deciphering intricate biological mechanisms such as protein folding, epigenetic modifications, and metabolic pathway interactions, enabling more accurate predictions of disease progression and therapeutic targets. Furthermore, the integration of AI-quantum hybrid models in clinical diagnostics and imaging analytics is redefining personalized medicine. Quantum-enhanced deep learning facilitates high-resolution medical imaging, real-time anomaly detection, and optimized radiomic feature extraction, leading to early and more accurate disease diagnosis. In genomics, quantum computing significantly accelerates whole-genome sequencing and mutation analysis, paving the way for tailored treatment strategies based on an individual's genetic profile. Despite its promise, challenges such as quantum hardware limitations, data coherence issues, and ethical considerations must be addressed to ensure the practical implementation of quantum-AI healthcare solutions. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the potential, challenges, and future directions of quantum-AI synergy in transforming modern healthcare.
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.
Precision medicine aims to tailor healthcare by integrating individual genetic, epigenetic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and clinical data, collectively referred to as multi-omic data. However, the scale and complexity of such multi-omics datasets challenge classical computing approaches. Quantum computing, which leverages superposition and entanglement (quantum-level correlations between particles), offers a fundamentally new paradigm for accelerating molecular simulations, biomarker discovery, and high-dimensional data analysis. This review explores the convergence of quantum computing and it's potential to provide unmet needs in precision biomedicine research, with emphasis on applications in diagnostic modeling, multi-omic data integration and drug discovery. We highlight early proof-of-concept studies demonstrating the use of quantum machine learning for disease prediction, quantum algorithms for protein folding, and quantum generative models for novel drug design. Hybrid quantum-classical workflows are also already enabling gene network inference and prioritization of variants of uncertain significance, the latter of which is a major focus of multi-omic research worldwide. Emerging directions include digital twin simulations and real-time clinical decision support powered by quantum models. Looking ahead, the long-term vision for quantum computing in biomedicine involves in silico modeling of entire biological systems to simulate cellular responses to perturbations like drug treatments, enabling clinicians to test therapies in virtual patients before real-world application. Despite these advances, practical implementation remains limited by hardware constraints, qubit decoherence, algorithm scalability, and regulatory barriers. Nonetheless, as quantum hardware evolves and AI-aligned quantum algorithms mature, their integration holds transformative potential. Quantum computing may eventually shorten diagnostic timelines, improve therapeutic precision, and make biomedical innovation more globally accessible. We outline a roadmap for translating these technologies into next-generation precision medicine.
Abstract Quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI) are converging to reshape the future of healthcare. Modern medicine generates vast and complex datasets from imaging, genomics, wearable sensors, and real-time clinical records. While AI has already demonstrated significant potential in diagnostics, drug discovery, and personalised medicine, its progress is often constrained by high computational demand, limited interpretability, and energy inefficiency. Quantum computing offers a fundamentally different paradigm, using qubits, superposition, and entanglement to process high-dimensional data and explore solution spaces in parallel. This synergy-quantum-enhanced AI or quantum machine learning (QML)promises transformative capabilities across the healthcare continuum. This narrative review explores the foundations of quantum computing, the evolution of AI in medicine, and the points where these technologies intersect. Applications span a range of biomedical domains. In radiology and pathology, quantum-assisted classifiers can enhance both the speed and interpretability of image analysis. In drug discovery and genomics, variational quantum eigensolvers and hybrid quantum–classical models may accelerate molecular simulations and genome-wide association studies. In personalized medicine, quantum kernel methods enable more precise phenotype clustering and improve the accuracy of treatment response predictions. Operationally, quantum-AI integration also supports hospital logistics, ICU resource allocation, and supply-chain resilience. Despite these opportunities, significant challenges remain, including hardware limitations, data encoding bottlenecks, interpretability deficits, and regulatory ambiguity. Ethical concerns around privacy, equity, and compliance with frameworks such as HIPAA and GDPR must also be addressed. By mapping opportunities and risks, this review underscores that quantum-AI is no longer speculative but an emerging reality. Harnessing its potential requires multidisciplinary collaboration to translate qubits and algorithms into tangible improvements in patient outcomes, clinical trust, and system efficiency.