Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40410424›Full record

ArticleNPJ precision oncology2025

Evaluating the performance of large language & visual-language models in cervical cytology screening.

Qi Hong, Shijie Liu, Liying Wu, Qiqi Lu, Pinglan Yang, Dingyu Chen, Gong Rao, Xinyi Liu, Hua Ye, Peiqi Zhuang and 6 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in NPJ precision oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing 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

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
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

16 authors.

Qi Hong *School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China.
Shijie Liu *Britton Chance Center and MoE Key Laboratory for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Liying Wu *Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Qiqi LuSchool of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China.
Pinglan YangDepartment of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Dingyu ChenDepartment of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Gong RaoBritton Chance Center and MoE Key Laboratory for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Xinyi LiuSchool of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China.
Hua YeSchool of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China.
Peiqi ZhuangSchool of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China.
Wenxiu YangSchool of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China.
Shaoqun ZengBritton Chance Center and MoE Key Laboratory for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Qianjin FengSchool of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China.
Xiuli LiuBritton Chance Center and MoE Key Laboratory for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. xlliu@mail.hust.edu.cn.
Jing CaiDepartment of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. jingcai@hust.edu.cn.
Shenghua ChengSchool of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China. chengsh2023@smu.edu.cn.

Funding

China Postdoctoral Science Foundation 2021M701320, 2022T150237National Natural Science Foundation of China 62375100National Natural Science Foundation of China 62471212, and 62201221Science and Technology Projects in Guangzhou 2024A04J4960
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Large language models (LLMs) and large visual-language models (LVLMs) have exhibited near-human levels of knowledge, image comprehension, and reasoning abilities, and their performance has undergone evaluation in some healthcare domains. However, a systematic evaluation of their capabilities in cervical cytology screening has yet to be conducted. Here, we constructed CCBench, a benchmark dataset dedicated to the evaluation of LLMs and LVLMs in cervical cytology screening, and developed a GPT-based semi-automatic evaluation pipeline to assess the performance of six LLMs (GPT-4, Bard, Claude-2.0, LLaMa-2, Qwen-Max, and ERNIE-Bot-4.0) and five LVLMs (GPT-4V, Gemini, LLaVA, Qwen-VL, and ViLT) on this dataset. CCBench comprises 773 question-answer (QA) pairs and 420 visual-question-answer (VQA) triplets, making it the first dataset in cervical cytology to include both QA and VQA data. We found that LLMs and LVLMs demonstrate promising accuracy and specialization in cervical cytology screening. GPT-4 achieved the best performance on the QA dataset, with an accuracy of 70.5% for close-ended questions and average expert evaluation score of 6.9/10 for open-ended questions. On the VQA dataset, Gemini achieved the highest accuracy for close-ended questions at 67.8%, while GPT-4V attained the highest expert evaluation score of 6.1/10 for open-ended questions. Besides, LLMs and LVLMs revealed varying abilities in answering questions across different topics and difficulty levels. However, their performance remains inferior to the expertise exhibited by cytopathology professionals, and the risk of generating misinformation could lead to potential harm. Therefore, substantial improvements are required before these models can be reliably deployed in clinical practice.

Identifiers

PMID40410424
PMCPMC12102327

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Registered trials

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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.