Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40348396›Full record

ArticleThe British journal of ophthalmology2025

Diagnostic report generation for macular diseases by natural language processing algorithms.

Xufeng Zhao, Chunshi Li, Jingyuan Yang, Xingwang Gu, Bing Li, Yuelin Wang, Bi-Lei Zhang, Xirong Li, Jianchun Zhao, Jie Wang and 1 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The British journal of ophthalmology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

11 authors.

Xufeng ZhaoDepartment of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6606-0477
Chunshi LiDepartment of Ophthalmology, Dalian No.3 People's Hospital, Dalian, Liaoning, China.
Jingyuan YangDepartment of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4685-3311
Xingwang GuDepartment of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
Bing LiDepartment of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8958-2972
Yuelin WangDepartment of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
Bi-Lei ZhangDepartment of Ophthalmology, Hunan Provincial People's Hospital, Changsha, Hunan, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9368-4939
Xirong LiKey Lab of DEKE, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Jianchun ZhaoVistel AI Lab, Visionary Intelligence Ltd, Beijing, China.
Jie WangVistel AI Lab, Visionary Intelligence Ltd, Beijing, China.
Weihong YuDepartment of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China yuweihongpumch@163.com.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

aimsTo investigate rule-based and deep learning (DL)-based methods for the automatically generating natural language diagnostic reports for macular diseases.

methodsThis diagnostic study collected the ophthalmic images of 2261 eyes from 1303 patients. Colour fundus photographs and optical coherence tomography images were obtained. Eyes without retinal diseases as well as eyes diagnosed with four macular diseases were included. For each eye, a diagnostic report was written with a format consisting of lesion descriptions, diagnoses and recommendations. Subsequently, a rule-based natural language processing (NLP) and a DL-based NLP system were developed to automatically generate a diagnostic report. To assess the effectiveness of these models, two junior ophthalmologists wrote diagnostic reports for the collected images independently. A questionnaire was designed and judged by two retina specialists to grade each report's readability, correctness of diagnosis, lesion description and recommendations.

resultsThe rule-based NLP reports achieved higher grades over junior ophthalmologists in correctness of diagnosis (9.13±1.52 vs 9.03±1.42 points) and recommendations (8.55±2.74 vs 8.50±2.53 points). Furthermore, the DL-based NLP reports got slightly lower grades to those of junior ophthalmologists in lesion description (8.82±1.84 vs 9.12±1.20 points, p<0.05), correctness of diagnosis (8.72±2.36 vs 9.08±1.55 points, p<0.05) and recommendations (8.81±2.52 vs 9.15±1.65 points, p<0.05). For readability, the DL-based reports performed better than junior ophthalmologists, with scores of 9.98±0.17 vs 9.94±0.25 points (p=0.094).

conclusionsThe multimodal AI system, coupled with the NLP algorithm, has demonstrated competence in generating reports for four macular diseases compared with junior ophthalmologists.

Indexed as

AlgorithmsDeep LearningMacula LuteaNatural Language ProcessingRetinal DiseasesAgedFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedOphthalmologistsSurveys and QuestionnairesTomography, Optical CoherenceDiagnostic tests/InvestigationMaculaRetina

Identifiers

PMID40348396
PMCPMC12421092

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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.