Trial Files: Keeping Physicians Up to Date on RCTs Using Large Language Models

Physicians and medical trainees depend on randomized clinical trials to inform
patient management, but keeping up with new studies is a challenge due to the
high demands of clinical and academic responsibilities. Open-access large
language models can potentially generate short, descriptive, and reliable
summaries of clinical trials to inform users on emerging literature in an
efficient manner. In 2023, we launched Trial Files, a bi-weekly newsletter
that summarizes the results of RCTs published in premier clinical journals,
New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of the
American Medical Association (JAMA), JAMA Internal Medicine, and Lancet. For
each RCT, we identifiy the unique trial registration identifier and then
leverage the associated registry application program interface (API) to
extract additional datapoints for each study. The data from MEDLINE and
official registries are then stored in the cloud. Trial summaries for the
newsletter are generated using large language models accessible by openAI
APIs. The Trial Files newsletter has expanded to additional subspecialties due
to interest from practitioners, including thrombosis, nephrology, cardiology,
and IBD.