Timely Clinical Diagnosis through Active Test Selection

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Estévez, Silas Ruhrberg, Astorga, Nicolás, van der Schaar, Mihaela
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866912711911145472
author Estévez, Silas Ruhrberg
Astorga, Nicolás
van der Schaar, Mihaela
author_facet Estévez, Silas Ruhrberg
Astorga, Nicolás
van der Schaar, Mihaela
contents There is growing interest in using machine learning (ML) to support clinical diagnosis, but most approaches rely on static, fully observed datasets and fail to reflect the sequential, resource-aware reasoning clinicians use in practice. Diagnosis remains complex and error prone, especially in high-pressure or resource-limited settings, underscoring the need for frameworks that help clinicians make timely and cost-effective decisions. We propose ACTMED (Adaptive Clinical Test selection via Model-based Experimental Design), a diagnostic framework that integrates Bayesian Experimental Design (BED) with large language models (LLMs) to better emulate real-world diagnostic reasoning. At each step, ACTMED selects the test expected to yield the greatest reduction in diagnostic uncertainty for a given patient. LLMs act as flexible simulators, generating plausible patient state distributions and supporting belief updates without requiring structured, task-specific training data. Clinicians can remain in the loop; reviewing test suggestions, interpreting intermediate outputs, and applying clinical judgment throughout. We evaluate ACTMED on real-world datasets and show it can optimize test selection to improve diagnostic accuracy, interpretability, and resource use. This represents a step toward transparent, adaptive, and clinician-aligned diagnostic systems that generalize across settings with reduced reliance on domain-specific data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_18988
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Timely Clinical Diagnosis through Active Test Selection
Estévez, Silas Ruhrberg
Astorga, Nicolás
van der Schaar, Mihaela
Artificial Intelligence
There is growing interest in using machine learning (ML) to support clinical diagnosis, but most approaches rely on static, fully observed datasets and fail to reflect the sequential, resource-aware reasoning clinicians use in practice. Diagnosis remains complex and error prone, especially in high-pressure or resource-limited settings, underscoring the need for frameworks that help clinicians make timely and cost-effective decisions. We propose ACTMED (Adaptive Clinical Test selection via Model-based Experimental Design), a diagnostic framework that integrates Bayesian Experimental Design (BED) with large language models (LLMs) to better emulate real-world diagnostic reasoning. At each step, ACTMED selects the test expected to yield the greatest reduction in diagnostic uncertainty for a given patient. LLMs act as flexible simulators, generating plausible patient state distributions and supporting belief updates without requiring structured, task-specific training data. Clinicians can remain in the loop; reviewing test suggestions, interpreting intermediate outputs, and applying clinical judgment throughout. We evaluate ACTMED on real-world datasets and show it can optimize test selection to improve diagnostic accuracy, interpretability, and resource use. This represents a step toward transparent, adaptive, and clinician-aligned diagnostic systems that generalize across settings with reduced reliance on domain-specific data.
title Timely Clinical Diagnosis through Active Test Selection
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.18988