Generative AI Models (2018–2024): Advancements and Applications in Kidney Care

Kidney disease poses a significant global health challenge, affecting millions and straining healthcare systems due to limited nephrology resources. This paper examines the transformative potential of Generative AI (GenAI), Large Language Models (LLMs), and Large Vision Models (LVMs) in addressing critical challenges in kidney care. GenAI supports research and early interventions through the generation of synthetic medical data. LLMs enhance clinical decision-making by analyzing medical texts and electronic health records, while LVMs improve diagnostic accuracy through advanced medical image analysis. Together, these technologies show promise for advancing patient education, risk stratification, disease diagnosis, and personalized treatment strategies. This paper highlights key advancements in GenAI, LLMs, and LVMs from 2018 to 2024, focusing on their applications in kidney care and presenting common use cases. It also discusses their limitations, including knowledge cutoffs, hallucinations, contextual understanding challenges, data representation biases, computational demands, and ethical concerns. By providing a comprehensive analysis, this paper outlines a roadmap for integrating these AI advancements into nephrology, emphasizing the need for further research and real-world validation to fully realize their transformative potential.