{"title":"[Transformation of free-text radiology reports into structured data].","authors":"Markus M Graf, Keno K Bressem, Lisa C Adams","doi":"10.1007/s00117-025-01422-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The rapid development of large language models (LLMs) opens up new possibilities for the automated processing of medical texts. Transforming unstructured radiology reports into structured data is crucial for efficient use in clinical decision support systems, research, and improving patient care.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>What are the challenges of transforming natural language radiology reports into structured data using LLMs? Which methods and architectures are promising? How can the quality and reliability of the extracted data be ensured?</p><p><strong>Materials and methods: </strong>This article examines current research on the application of LLMs in radiological information processing. Various approaches such as rule-based systems, machine learning, and deep learning models, particularly neural network architectures, are analyzed and compared. The focus is on extracting information such as diagnoses, anatomical locations, findings, and measurements.</p><p><strong>Results and conclusion: </strong>LLMs show great potential in transforming reports into structured data. In particular, deep learning models trained on large datasets achieve high accuracies. However, challenges remain, such as dealing with ambiguities, abbreviations, and the variability of linguistic expressions. Combining LLMs with domain-specific knowledge, for example, in the form of ontologies, can further improve the performance of the systems. Integrating contextual information and developing robust evaluation metrics are also important research directions.</p>","PeriodicalId":74635,"journal":{"name":"Radiologie (Heidelberg, Germany)","volume":" ","pages":"249-256"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Radiologie (Heidelberg, Germany)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00117-025-01422-4","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/2/11 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: The rapid development of large language models (LLMs) opens up new possibilities for the automated processing of medical texts. Transforming unstructured radiology reports into structured data is crucial for efficient use in clinical decision support systems, research, and improving patient care.
Objectives: What are the challenges of transforming natural language radiology reports into structured data using LLMs? Which methods and architectures are promising? How can the quality and reliability of the extracted data be ensured?
Materials and methods: This article examines current research on the application of LLMs in radiological information processing. Various approaches such as rule-based systems, machine learning, and deep learning models, particularly neural network architectures, are analyzed and compared. The focus is on extracting information such as diagnoses, anatomical locations, findings, and measurements.
Results and conclusion: LLMs show great potential in transforming reports into structured data. In particular, deep learning models trained on large datasets achieve high accuracies. However, challenges remain, such as dealing with ambiguities, abbreviations, and the variability of linguistic expressions. Combining LLMs with domain-specific knowledge, for example, in the form of ontologies, can further improve the performance of the systems. Integrating contextual information and developing robust evaluation metrics are also important research directions.