Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41429891›Full record

ArticleNPJ digital medicine2025

Multi-step retrieval and reasoning improves radiology question answering with large language models.

Sebastian Wind, Jeta Sopa, Daniel Truhn, Mahshad Lotfinia, Tri-Thien Nguyen, Keno Bressem, Lisa Adams, Mirabela Rusu, Harald Köstler, Gerhard Wellein and 2 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in NPJ digital medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
12citing 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

12 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Validating LLM judges for automated oversight of patient communication.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026
    Article
  4. Review
  5. Article
  6. Review
  7. Article
  8. A comprehensive survey of AI agents in healthcare.Journal of biomedical informatics · 2026
    Review
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Large language model-based evaluation of the impact of gender in medical research.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026
    Article
  12. 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

12 authors.

Sebastian WindPattern Recognition Lab, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Jeta SopaPattern Recognition Lab, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Daniel TruhnDepartment of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany.
Mahshad LotfiniaDepartment of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany.
Tri-Thien NguyenPattern Recognition Lab, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Keno BressemDepartment of Cardiovascular Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, TUM University Clinic, School of medicine and Health, German Heart Center, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Lisa AdamsDepartment of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, TUM University Clinic, School of Medicine and Health, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Mirabela RusuDepartment of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Harald KöstlerErlangen National High Performance Computing Center, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Gerhard WelleinErlangen National High Performance Computing Center, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Andreas MaierPattern Recognition Lab, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Soroosh Tayebi ArastehPattern Recognition Lab, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany. soroosh.arasteh@rwth-aachen.de.

Funding

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 440719683Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft NE 2136/3-1, LI3893/6-1, TR 1700/7-1European Union 101079894European Union's Horizon Europe and innovation programme ODELIA [Open Consortium for Decentralized Medical Artificial Intelligence], 101057091German Federal Ministry of Education TRANSFORM LIVER, 031L0312A; SWAG, 01KD2215B
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Large language models (LLMs) show promise for radiology decision support, yet conventional retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) relies on single-step retrieval and struggles with complex reasoning. We introduce radiology Retrieval and Reasoning (RaR), a multi-step retrieval framework that iteratively summarizes clinical questions, retrieves evidence, and synthesizes answers. We evaluated 25 LLMs spanning general-purpose, reasoning-optimized, and clinically fine-tuned models (0.5B → 670B parameters) on 104 expert-curated radiology questions and an independent set of 65 real radiology board-exam questions. RaR significantly improved mean diagnostic accuracy versus zero-shot prompting (75% vs. 67%; P = 1.1 × 10

Identifiers

PMID41429891
PMCPMC12749912

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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.