Topics and Characteristics of Registered Studies on LLMs

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
• Clinical Research

Background:

• Large Language Models (LLMs) show promise for healthcare applications, but empirical evidence is scarce due to lengthy clinical trial publication timelines.
• Clinical trial registries offer early insights into future research directions and expected publications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and characterize studies utilizing LLMs registered on ClinicalTrials.gov.
• To summarize the primary purposes and topics of LLM-related clinical studies.

Main Methods:

• Keyword-based screening of ClinicalTrials.gov.
• Manual inspection of identified studies.
• Analysis of study start dates, primary purposes, and research topics.

Main Results:

• 94 studies involving LLMs were identified, all with start dates in 2023 or later.
• LLM studies frequently focused on health services research, with 'treatment' being a less common primary purpose.
• Key topics included diagnostics, clinical recommendations, and supportive functions.

Conclusions:

• Current clinical trials are evaluating LLMs primarily as assistive tools for linguistic and reasoning tasks.
• LLMs are not yet widely explored for treatment, prevention, or drug discovery in registered clinical studies.
• The focus is on leveraging LLMs' capabilities to enhance healthcare operations and decision-making support.