SynLLM: A Comparative Analysis of Large Language Models for Medical Tabular Synthetic Data Generation via Prompt Engineering

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Ilaty, Arshia, Shirazi, Hossein, Homayouni, Hajar
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Ilaty, Arshia
Shirazi, Hossein
Homayouni, Hajar
author_facet Ilaty, Arshia
Shirazi, Hossein
Homayouni, Hajar
contents Access to real-world medical data is often restricted due to privacy regulations, posing a significant barrier to the advancement of healthcare research. Synthetic data offers a promising alternative; however, generating realistic, clinically valid, and privacy-conscious records remains a major challenge. Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) offer new opportunities for structured data generation; however, existing approaches frequently lack systematic prompting strategies and comprehensive, multi-dimensional evaluation frameworks. In this paper, we present SynLLM, a modular framework for generating high-quality synthetic medical tabular data using 20 state-of-the-art open-source LLMs, including LLaMA, Mistral, and GPT variants, guided by structured prompts. We propose four distinct prompt types, ranging from example-driven to rule-based constraints, that encode schema, metadata, and domain knowledge to control generation without model fine-tuning. Our framework features a comprehensive evaluation pipeline that rigorously assesses generated data across statistical fidelity, clinical consistency, and privacy preservation. We evaluate SynLLM across three public medical datasets, including Diabetes, Cirrhosis, and Stroke, using 20 open-source LLMs. Our results show that prompt engineering significantly impacts data quality and privacy risk, with rule-based prompts achieving the best privacy-quality balance. SynLLM establishes that, when guided by well-designed prompts and evaluated with robust, multi-metric criteria, LLMs can generate synthetic medical data that is both clinically plausible and privacy-aware, paving the way for safer and more effective data sharing in healthcare research.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_08529
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SynLLM: A Comparative Analysis of Large Language Models for Medical Tabular Synthetic Data Generation via Prompt Engineering
Ilaty, Arshia
Shirazi, Hossein
Homayouni, Hajar
Artificial Intelligence
Access to real-world medical data is often restricted due to privacy regulations, posing a significant barrier to the advancement of healthcare research. Synthetic data offers a promising alternative; however, generating realistic, clinically valid, and privacy-conscious records remains a major challenge. Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) offer new opportunities for structured data generation; however, existing approaches frequently lack systematic prompting strategies and comprehensive, multi-dimensional evaluation frameworks. In this paper, we present SynLLM, a modular framework for generating high-quality synthetic medical tabular data using 20 state-of-the-art open-source LLMs, including LLaMA, Mistral, and GPT variants, guided by structured prompts. We propose four distinct prompt types, ranging from example-driven to rule-based constraints, that encode schema, metadata, and domain knowledge to control generation without model fine-tuning. Our framework features a comprehensive evaluation pipeline that rigorously assesses generated data across statistical fidelity, clinical consistency, and privacy preservation. We evaluate SynLLM across three public medical datasets, including Diabetes, Cirrhosis, and Stroke, using 20 open-source LLMs. Our results show that prompt engineering significantly impacts data quality and privacy risk, with rule-based prompts achieving the best privacy-quality balance. SynLLM establishes that, when guided by well-designed prompts and evaluated with robust, multi-metric criteria, LLMs can generate synthetic medical data that is both clinically plausible and privacy-aware, paving the way for safer and more effective data sharing in healthcare research.
title SynLLM: A Comparative Analysis of Large Language Models for Medical Tabular Synthetic Data Generation via Prompt Engineering
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.08529