Performance of open-source and proprietary large language models in generating patient-friendly radiology chest CT reports

Rationale and objectives

Large Language Models (LLMs) show promise for generating patient-friendly radiology reports, but the performance of open-source versus proprietary LLMs needs assessment. To compare open-source and proprietary LLMs in generating patient-friendly radiology reports from chest CTs using quantitative readability metrics and qualitative assessments by radiologists.

Materials and methods

Fifty chest CT reports were processed by seven LLMs: three open-source models (Llama-3-70b, Mistral-7b, Mixtral-8x7b) and four proprietary models (GPT-4, GPT-3.5-Turbo, Claude-3-Opus, Gemini-Ultra). Simplification was evaluated using five quantitative readability metrics. Three radiologists rated patient-friendliness on a five-point Likert scale across five criteria. Content and coherence errors were counted. Inter-rater reliability and differences among models were statistically assessed.

Results

Inter-rater reliability was substantial to near perfect (κ = 0.76–0.86). Qualitatively, Llama-3-70b was non-inferior to leading proprietary models in 4/5 categories. GPT-3.5-Turbo showed the best overall readability, outperforming GPT-4 in two metrics. Llama-3-70b outperformed GPT-3.5-Turbo on the CLI (p = 0.006). Claude-3-Opus and Gemini-Ultra scored lower on readability but were rated highly in qualitative assessments. Claude-3-Opus maintained perfect factual accuracy. Claude-3-Opus and GPT-4 outperformed Llama-3-70b in emotional sensitivity (90.0 % vs 46.0 %, p < 0.001).

Conclusions

Llama-3-70b shows strong potential in generating quality, patient-friendly radiology reports, challenging proprietary models. With further adaptation, open-source LLMs could advance patient-friendly reporting technology.