ArticleJournal of vascular surgery. Venous and lymphatic disorders2025
Assessing the quality of ChatGPT's responses to questions related to radiofrequency ablation for varicose veins.
Article in Journal of vascular surgery. Venous and lymphatic disorders, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- From Bits to Bedside: From Data to Knowledge in Vascular Surgery.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- How Well Do Different AI Language Models Inform Patients About Radiofrequency Ablation for Varicose Veins?Cureus · 2025Article
- ChatGPT's responses to questions related to radiofrequency ablation for varicose veins: Correspondence.Journal of vascular surgery. Venous and lymphatic disorders · 2025Article
- Addressing comments by Daungsupawong et al on ChatGPT's responses regarding radiofrequency ablation for varicose veins.Journal of vascular surgery. Venous and lymphatic disorders · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThis study aimed to evaluate the accuracy and reproducibility of information provided by ChatGPT, in response to frequently asked questions about radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for varicose veins.
methodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted at The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan. A set of 18 frequently asked questions regarding RFA for varicose veins were compiled from credible online sources and presented to ChatGPT twice, separately, using the new chat option. Twelve experienced vascular surgeons (with >2 years of experience and ≥20 RFA procedures performed annually) independently evaluated the accuracy of the responses using a 4-point Likert scale and assessed their reproducibility.
resultsMost evaluators were males (n = 10/12 [83.3%]) with an average of 12.3 ± 6.2 years of experience as a vascular surgeon. Six evaluators (50%) were from the UK followed by three from Saudi Arabia (25.0%), two from Pakistan (16.7%), and one from the United States (8.3%). Among the 216 accuracy grades, most of the evaluators graded the responses as comprehensive (n = 87/216 [40.3%]) or accurate but insufficient (n = 70/216 [32.4%]), whereas only 17.1% (n = 37/216) were graded as a mixture of both accurate and inaccurate information and 10.8% (n = 22/216) as entirely inaccurate. Overall, 89.8% of the responses (n = 194/216) were deemed reproducible. Of the total responses, 70.4% (n = 152/216) were classified as good quality and reproducible. The remaining responses were poor quality with 19.4% reproducible (n = 42/216) and 10.2% nonreproducible (n = 22/216). There was nonsignificant inter-rater disagreement among the vascular surgeons for overall responses (Fleiss' kappa, -0.028; P = .131).
conclusionsChatGPT provided generally accurate and reproducible information on RFA for varicose veins; however, variability in response quality and limited inter-rater reliability highlight the need for further improvements. Although it has the potential to enhance patient education and support healthcare decision-making, improvements in its training, validation, transparency, and mechanisms to address inaccurate or incomplete information are essential.
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