Comparative Analysis of ChatGPT’s Diagnostic Performance with Radiologists Using Real-World Radiology Reports of Brain Tumors
Authors: Mitsuyama Yasuhito , Tatekawa Hiroyuki , Takita Hirotaka , Sasaki Fumi , Tashiro Akane , Oue Satoshi , Walston Shannon L , Miki Yukio , Ueda Daiju 
Published: October 2023

Background

Large Language Models like Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) have demonstrated potential for differential diagnosis in radiology. Previous studies investigating this potential primarily utilized quizzes from academic journals, which may not accurately represent real-world clinical scenarios.

Purpose

This study aimed to assess the diagnostic capabilities of ChatGPT using actual clinical radiology reports of brain tumors and compare its performance with that of neuroradiologists and general radiologists.

Methods

We consecutively collected brain MRI reports from preoperative brain tumor patients at Osaka Metropolitan University Hospital, taken from January to December 2021. ChatGPT and five radiologists were presented with the same findings from the reports and asked to suggest differential and final diagnoses. The pathological diagnosis of the excised tumor served as the ground truth. Chi-square tests and Fisher’s exact test were used for statistical analysis.

Results

In a study analyzing 99 radiological reports, ChatGPT achieved a final diagnostic accuracy of 75% (95% CI: 66, 83%), while radiologists’ accuracy ranged from 64% to 82%. ChatGPT’s final diagnostic accuracy using reports from neuroradiologists was higher at 82% (95% CI: 71, 89%), compared to 52% (95% CI: 33, 71%) using those from general radiologists with a p-value of 0.012. In the realm of differential diagnoses, ChatGPT’s accuracy was 95% (95% CI: 91, 99%), while radiologists’ fell between 74% and 88%. Notably, for these differential diagnoses, ChatGPT’s accuracy remained consistent whether reports were from neuroradiologists (96%, 95% CI: 89, 99%) or general radiologists (91%, 95% CI: 73, 98%) with a p-value of 0.33.

Conclusion

ChatGPT exhibited good diagnostic capability, comparable to neuroradiologists in differentiating brain tumors from MRI reports. ChatGPT can be a second opinion for neuroradiologists on final diagnoses and a guidance tool for general radiologists and residents, especially for understanding diagnostic cues and handling challenging cases.

This study evaluated ChatGPT’s diagnostic capabilities using real-world clinical MRI reports from brain tumor cases, revealing that its accuracy in interpreting brain tumors from MRI findings is competitive with radiologists.

Key results

ChatGPT demonstrated a diagnostic accuracy rate of 75% for final diagnoses based on preoperative MRI findings from 99 brain tumor cases, competing favorably with five radiologists whose accuracies ranged between 64% and 82%. For differential diagnoses, ChatGPT achieved a remarkable 95% accuracy, outperforming several of the radiologists.

Radiology reports from neuroradiologists and general radiologists showed varying accuracy when input into ChatGPT. Reports from neuroradiologists resulted in higher diagnostic accuracy for final diagnoses, while there was no difference in accuracy for differential diagnoses between neuroradiologists and general radiologists.