Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42819271›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in digital health2026

CDTD-Agent: a retrieval-augmented multi-agent digital health framework for integrated diabetes care: a single-case expert-rated pilot study.

Jieyi Zhang, Luqing Wu, Jielong Wu, Xiaoming Han, Lijin Lin, Nengjiang Zhao, Zhihai Zhang, Miaona Cai, Meiqi Chen, Shuyu Yang and 1 more

Abstract read
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Article in Frontiers in digital health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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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

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

11 authors.

Jieyi ZhangCenter of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Luqing WuXiamen ITG Health Technology Co., Ltd., Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Jielong WuCenter of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Xiaoming HanDepartment of Artificial Intelligence, School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Xiamen University of Technology, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Lijin LinCenter of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Nengjiang ZhaoCenter of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Zhihai ZhangCenter of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Miaona CaiCenter of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Meiqi ChenCenter of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Shuyu YangCenter of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Bo LiCenter of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Background: Diabetes management increasingly requires coordination across Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and lifestyle-based health management. General-purpose large language models (LLMs) can generate clinical text but may lack reliable source grounding and structured cross-disciplinary reasoning. Methods: We developed CDTD-Agent, a retrieval-augmented multi-agent framework that combines a domain-specific knowledge base with an Extract-Retrieve-Reason workflow. The knowledge base included 12 medical textbooks, 8 clinical guidelines, and 183 expert-reviewed diabetes cases. In a blinded single-case pilot evaluation, 30 senior experts rated anonymized recommendations from CDTD-Agent, GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3.2-Exp, Doubao, and two attending physicians across eight dimensions. Linear mixed-effects models accounted for repeated ratings within evaluators, with Holm correction across eight omnibus tests and global Benjamini-Hochberg correction across 40 focused CDTD-Agent-versus-comparator contrasts. A Results: Significant source effects were detected in all eight dimensions after Holm correction (all adjusted Conclusion: In this standardized complex T2DM case, CDTD-Agent received favorable expert ratings relative to the evaluated general-purpose LLMs in several clinically important dimensions. These findings are scenario-specific and do not establish generalizable clinical performance or isolate the effects of individual framework components. Multicase, repeated-generation, factorial-ablation, external, and prospective validation is needed before clinical deployment.

Indexed as

diabetes managementlarge language models (LLMs)multi-agent systemretrieval-augmented generation (RAG)traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)

Identifiers

PMID42819271
PMCPMC13623845

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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.