Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40320101›Full record

ArticleJournal of biomedical informatics2025

CD-Tron: Leveraging large clinical language model for early detection of cognitive decline from electronic health records.

Hao Guan, John Novoa-Laurentiev, Li Zhou

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Article in Journal of biomedical informatics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

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3citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
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1 · What the graph read from it

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Hao GuanDivision of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: hguan6@bwh.harvard.edu.
John Novoa-LaurentievDivision of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Li ZhouDivision of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

Funding

Leveraging Longitudinal Data and Informatics Technology to Understand the Role of Bilingualism in Cognitive Resilience, Aging and DementiaR01AG080429 · NIA · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · PI Michelle L Dossett, HUA XU · 2023 to 2026
$5.5M
Identifying and addressing missingness and bias to enhance discovery from multimodal health dataR01LM014239 · NLM · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · PI Pengyu Hong, Li Zhou · 2023 to 2026
$1.6M
NIA NIH HHS R01 AG080429NLM NIH HHS R01 LM014239
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundEarly detection of cognitive decline during the preclinical stage of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) is crucial for timely intervention and treatment. Clinical notes in the electronic health record contain valuable information that can aid in the early identification of cognitive decline. In this study, we utilize advanced large clinical language models, fine-tuned on clinical notes, to improve the early detection of cognitive decline.

methodsWe collected clinical notes from 2,166 patients spanning the 4 years preceding their initial mild cognitive impairment (MCI) diagnosis from the Enterprise Data Warehouse of Mass General Brigham. To train the model, we developed CD-Tron, built upon a large clinical language model that was finetuned using 4,949 expert-labeled note sections. For evaluation, the trained model was applied to 1,996 independent note sections to assess its performance on real-world unstructured clinical data. Additionally, we used explainable AI techniques, specifically SHAP values (SHapley Additive exPlanations), to interpret the model's predictions and provide insight into the most influential features. Error analysis was also facilitated to further analyze the model's prediction.

resultsCD-Tron significantly outperforms baseline models, achieving notable improvements in precision, recall, and AUC metrics for detecting cognitive decline (CD). Tested on many real-world clinical notes, CD-Tron demonstrated high sensitivity with only one false negative, crucial for clinical applications prioritizing early and accurate CD detection. SHAP-based interpretability analysis highlighted key textual features contributing to model predictions, supporting transparency and clinician understanding.

conclusionCD-Tron offers a novel approach to early cognitive decline detection by applying large clinical language models to free-text EHR data. Pretrained on real-world clinical notes, it accurately identifies early cognitive decline and integrates SHAP for interpretability, enhancing transparency in predictions.

Indexed as

Cognitive DysfunctionElectronic Health RecordsAgedAlzheimer DiseaseEarly DiagnosisFemaleHumansMaleNatural Language ProcessingAlzheimer’s diseaseClinical notesCognitive declineElectric health recordsExplainable AILarge language model

Identifiers

PMID40320101
PMCPMC13050582

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.