Using Generative AI to Extract Structured Information from Free Text Pathology Reports

Manually converting unstructured text pathology reports into structured pathology reports is very time-consuming and prone to errors. This study demonstrates the transformative potential of generative AI in automating the analysis of free-text pathology reports. Employing the ChatGPT Large Language Model within a Streamlit web application, we automated the extraction and structuring of information from 33 unstructured breast cancer pathology reports from Taipei Medical University Hospital. Achieving a 99.61% accuracy rate, the AI system notably reduced the processing time compared to traditional methods. This not only underscores the efficacy of AI in converting unstructured medical text into structured data but also highlights its potential to enhance the efficiency and reliability of medical text analysis. However, this study is limited to breast cancer pathology reports and was conducted using data obtained from hospitals associated with a single institution. In the future, we plan to expand the scope of this research to include pathology reports for other cancer types incrementally and conduct external validation to further substantiate the robustness and generalizability of the proposed system. Through this technological integration, we aimed to substantiate the capabilities of generative AI in improving both the speed and reliability of data processing. The outcomes of this study affirm that generative AI can significantly transform the handling of pathology reports, promising substantial advancements in biomedical research by facilitating the structured analysis of complex medical data.