Multicenter Evaluation of Large Language Models Versus Hepatologists for Prognostic Prediction in Drug‐Induced Liver Injury
BACKGROUND & AIMS: Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) would progress to chronicity or death. Large language models (LLMs) may enhance clinical decision-making, yet their utility relative to physicians in DILI remains unclear. Therefore, we evaluated their performance in predicting DILI outcomes. METHODS: We enrolled 943 DILI patients from three centers as internal and external cohorts. Based on 12-month follow-up, outcomes were classified as recovery, 6/12-month chronicity, and death. LLMs (Gemini-2.5 Pro, GPT-5.1, DeepSeek-3.2), hepatologists (Junior, middle, senior), and models (Hy's Law, nHy's Law, MELD Score) estimated probabilities of outcomes. LLM-Rules (VOTE, OR, AND) were applied to enhance stability. Model performance was assessed. RESULTS: For 6-month chronicity, the senior achieved highest AUROC (0.61) with an accuracy of 70%. Gemini-2.5 Pro and GPT-5.1 yielded AUROCs of 0.60 and 0.59, respectively, outperforming junior and middle hepatologists. Gemini-2.5 Pro demonstrated strongest agreement with senior (κ = 0.43). LLMs all exhibited lower accuracy and specificity than hepatologists. A similar result was observed in 12-month chronicity. For overall mortality, the senior achieved highest AUROC (0.87) with an accuracy of 83%. Gemini-2.5 Pro and GPT-5.1 achieved AUROCs of 0.86, outperforming junior hepatologist, Hy's Law, and nHy's Law. GPT-5.1 achieved strongest agreement with senior (κ = 0.25). LLM-Rules demonstrated stability for predicting outcomes across cohorts. OR and AND rules improved sensitivity and specificity, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: GPT-5.1 and Gemini-2.5 Pro showed AUROCs approaching senior hepatologists for DILI outcomes with limited accuracy and specificity. LLM-Rules demonstrated stable performance across cohorts with improved sensitivity or specificity, supporting the potential of multi-LLM approaches as clinician-supervised complementary tools.
Authors
- Rongtao Lai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1704-7086)
- Yanan Du (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2627-9727)
- Qing Xie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2582-8803)
- Haoshuang Fu
- Tianhui Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1832-3732)
- Gangde Zhao
- Shuying Song
- Yuelin Xiao
- Xinya Zang
- Ruidong Mo
- Yan Zhuang
Institutions
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN)
- Ruijin Hospital (CN)
- Wuxi People's Hospital (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Liver International
- Published
- 2026-09-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/liv.70879
- Primary Topic
- Drug-Induced Hepatotoxicity and Protection
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China