An expert-level generalist AI for abdominal CT diagnosis

Artificial intelligence (AI) in radiology aspires to deliver expert-level diagnosis across diverse clinical tasks, yet existing supervised strategies remain limited in scope. We developed RADAR, a generalist vision-language model trained on more than 400,000 contrast-enhanced abdominal computed tomography (CT) examinations and 15 million anatomy-wise image-text pairs, learning directly from clinical reports without manual annotation. Throughout internal and external evaluations across multiple centers and varied clinical scenarios, RADAR achieved high diagnostic performance and robust generalization for 18 anatomical structures and 146 imaging findings. In a reader study, RADAR assistance increased the diagnostic sensitivity of 26 radiologists by ~10%. RADAR offers a scalable, versatile, and interpretable solution for abdominal CT, demonstrating that generalist AI can match human experts in general and complicated radiology tasks.

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
Science
Published
2026-09-17
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aec6129
Primary Topic
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

Funders

Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
article

An expert-level generalist AI for abdominal CT diagnosis

He Ding, Shenghong Ju, Yutong Xie, Hongkan Wang et al.
Science
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
article

An expert-level generalist AI for abdominal CT diagnosis

He Ding, Shenghong Ju, Yutong Xie, Hongkan Wang, Jian Ding, Jianwen Ning, Shaoteng Zhang, Zhilin Zheng, Xianghua Ye, Ling Zhang, Tony C. W. Mok, Wanxing Chang, Yanjie Zhou, Zhongyi Shui, Yingda Xia, Tao Ma, Chaohui Yu, Xiaoguang Wang, Xi Li, Jian Liu, Zilin Lu, Yong Xia, Xing Xue, Qi Zhang, Wenbo Xiao, Weiwei Cao, Jie Peng, Sinuo Wang, Tingbo Liang, Cao Chen, Yiping Liu, Jianfeng Zhang, Dongjie Chen, Wei Zhang, Jianpeng Zhang, Qi Wu, Zhaomin Ni, Huazhen Ye, Yuming Gao, Zhi Li
article en

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) in radiology aspires to deliver expert-level diagnosis across diverse clinical tasks, yet existing supervised strategies remain limited in scope. We developed RADAR, a generalist vision-language model trained on more than 400,000 contrast-enhanced abdominal computed tomography (CT) examinations and 15 million anatomy-wise image-text pairs, learning directly from clinical reports without manual annotation. Throughout internal and external evaluations across multiple centers and varied clinical scenarios, RADAR achieved high diagnostic performance and robust generalization for 18 anatomical structures and 146 imaging findings. In a reader study, RADAR assistance increased the diagnostic sensitivity of 26 radiologists by ~10%. RADAR offers a scalable, versatile, and interpretable solution for abdominal CT, demonstrating that generalist AI can match human experts in general and complicated radiology tasks.

ScienceVol. 393(6817)
University of Nottingham Ningbo China (CN), Zhejiang University of Science and Technology (CN), Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (CN), Australian Institute of Business (AU), Alibaba Group (Cayman Islands) (KY), Jiaxing University (CN), First People's Hospital of Yuhang District (CN), Ningbo No. 2 Hospital (CN), Zhongda Hospital Southeast University (CN), Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (AE), Zhejiang Lab (CN), Heilongjiang University of Technology (CN), First Hospital of Jiaxing (CN), Third People's Hospital of Huzhou (CN), Shaoxing People's Hospital (CN), Jingning County People's Hospital (CN), First Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University (CN), Alibaba Group (China) (CN), The University of Adelaide (AU), Zhejiang University (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Quality Education
Openalex Percentile: Top 15%
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.