A multimodal tool-augmented agent for evidence-based clinical decision support in longitudinal AMD follow-up

Clinical management of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) requires longitudinal decisions on disease activity, treatment response, and anti-VEGF injection intervals. These decisions depend on integrating multimodal retinal imaging findings across visits, yet manual synthesis is time-consuming and may omit relevant information, limiting transparency and consistency in follow-up planning. Large language models (LLMs) have been explored to summarize longitudinal AMD information, but existing approaches may lack explicit quantitative grounding and evidence attribution, reducing their auditability in clinical decision support. To address these limitations, we developed AMDagent, an evidence-grounded clinical agent that integrates quantitative imaging analysis with guideline retrieval to generate structured, clinician-facing decision-support outputs. The system links longitudinal imaging findings to actionable management considerations while preserving traceable evidence sources. In a 20-case proof-of-concept evaluation of curated longitudinal AMD cases, AMDagent was rated clinically appropriate in 92.0% of predefined decision-support units under expert adjudication. In addition, 83.3% of audited major clinical claims were explicitly grounded in tool-derived quantitative measurements and/or retrieved guideline evidence, enabling clinician verification. These preliminary findings suggest that evidence-grounded, clinician-facing agents may support more transparent and auditable longitudinal AMD decision support, although larger prospective multi-center studies are needed to assess generalizability and clinical utility.

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Publication Details

Journal
npj Digital Medicine
Published
2026-11-03
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-026-03412-9
Primary Topic
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

A multimodal tool-augmented agent for evidence-based clinical decision support in longitudinal AMD follow-up

Kai Jin, Jiong Zhang, Tao Chen
npj Digital Medicine
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
article

A multimodal tool-augmented agent for evidence-based clinical decision support in longitudinal AMD follow-up

Kai Jin, Jiong Zhang, Tao Chen
article en

Abstract

Clinical management of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) requires longitudinal decisions on disease activity, treatment response, and anti-VEGF injection intervals. These decisions depend on integrating multimodal retinal imaging findings across visits, yet manual synthesis is time-consuming and may omit relevant information, limiting transparency and consistency in follow-up planning. Large language models (LLMs) have been explored to summarize longitudinal AMD information, but existing approaches may lack explicit quantitative grounding and evidence attribution, reducing their auditability in clinical decision support. To address these limitations, we developed AMDagent, an evidence-grounded clinical agent that integrates quantitative imaging analysis with guideline retrieval to generate structured, clinician-facing decision-support outputs. The system links longitudinal imaging findings to actionable management considerations while preserving traceable evidence sources. In a 20-case proof-of-concept evaluation of curated longitudinal AMD cases, AMDagent was rated clinically appropriate in 92.0% of predefined decision-support units under expert adjudication. In addition, 83.3% of audited major clinical claims were explicitly grounded in tool-derived quantitative measurements and/or retrieved guideline evidence, enabling clinician verification. These preliminary findings suggest that evidence-grounded, clinician-facing agents may support more transparent and auditable longitudinal AMD decision support, although larger prospective multi-center studies are needed to assess generalizability and clinical utility.

npj Digital Medicine
Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University (CN), Zhejiang University (CN), Eindhoven University of Technology (NL), Nanjing University (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 22%
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
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