Multi-Ontology Integration with Dual-Axis Propagation for Medical Concept Representation

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Main Authors: Kerdabadi, Mohsen Nayebi, Moghaddam, Arya Hadizadeh, Wang, Dongjie, Yao, Zijun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Kerdabadi, Mohsen Nayebi
Moghaddam, Arya Hadizadeh
Wang, Dongjie
Yao, Zijun
author_facet Kerdabadi, Mohsen Nayebi
Moghaddam, Arya Hadizadeh
Wang, Dongjie
Yao, Zijun
contents Medical ontology graphs map external knowledge to medical codes in electronic health records via structured relationships. By leveraging domain-approved connections (e.g., parent-child), predictive models can generate richer medical concept representations by incorporating contextual information from related concepts. However, existing literature primarily focuses on incorporating domain knowledge from a single ontology system, or from multiple ontology systems (e.g., diseases, drugs, and procedures) in isolation, without integrating them into a unified learning structure. Consequently, concept representation learning often remains limited to intra-ontology relationships, overlooking cross-ontology connections. In this paper, we propose LINKO, a large language model (LLM)-augmented integrative ontology learning framework that leverages multiple ontology graphs simultaneously by enabling dual-axis knowledge propagation both within and across heterogeneous ontology systems to enhance medical concept representation learning. Specifically, LINKO first employs LLMs to provide a graph-retrieval-augmented initialization for ontology concept embedding, through an engineered prompt that includes concept descriptions, and is further augmented with ontology context. Second, our method jointly learns the medical concepts in diverse ontology graphs by performing knowledge propagation in two axes: (1) intra-ontology vertical propagation across hierarchical ontology levels and (2) inter-ontology horizontal propagation within every level in parallel. Last, through extensive experiments on two public datasets, we validate the superior performance of LINKO over state-of-the-art baselines. As a plug-in encoder compatible with existing EHR predictive models, LINKO further demonstrates enhanced robustness in scenarios involving limited data availability and rare disease prediction.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_21320
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multi-Ontology Integration with Dual-Axis Propagation for Medical Concept Representation
Kerdabadi, Mohsen Nayebi
Moghaddam, Arya Hadizadeh
Wang, Dongjie
Yao, Zijun
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Medical ontology graphs map external knowledge to medical codes in electronic health records via structured relationships. By leveraging domain-approved connections (e.g., parent-child), predictive models can generate richer medical concept representations by incorporating contextual information from related concepts. However, existing literature primarily focuses on incorporating domain knowledge from a single ontology system, or from multiple ontology systems (e.g., diseases, drugs, and procedures) in isolation, without integrating them into a unified learning structure. Consequently, concept representation learning often remains limited to intra-ontology relationships, overlooking cross-ontology connections. In this paper, we propose LINKO, a large language model (LLM)-augmented integrative ontology learning framework that leverages multiple ontology graphs simultaneously by enabling dual-axis knowledge propagation both within and across heterogeneous ontology systems to enhance medical concept representation learning. Specifically, LINKO first employs LLMs to provide a graph-retrieval-augmented initialization for ontology concept embedding, through an engineered prompt that includes concept descriptions, and is further augmented with ontology context. Second, our method jointly learns the medical concepts in diverse ontology graphs by performing knowledge propagation in two axes: (1) intra-ontology vertical propagation across hierarchical ontology levels and (2) inter-ontology horizontal propagation within every level in parallel. Last, through extensive experiments on two public datasets, we validate the superior performance of LINKO over state-of-the-art baselines. As a plug-in encoder compatible with existing EHR predictive models, LINKO further demonstrates enhanced robustness in scenarios involving limited data availability and rare disease prediction.
title Multi-Ontology Integration with Dual-Axis Propagation for Medical Concept Representation
topic Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.21320