NIH Develops AI Algorithm to Identify Potential Volunteers for Clinical Trials
Summary
On November 18, 2024, researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published a study on an algorithm that harnesses AI to help accelerate the process of matching potential volunteers for relevant clinical research trials. The algorithm, called TrialGPT, is intended to help clinicians navigate the vast range of clinical trials available to patients by identifying potential matches and providing a summary of how that person meets the criteria for study enrollment. The team of researchers used a large language model (LLM) to develop an innovative framework for TrialGPT and compared the algorithm to the results of three human clinicians who analyzed over 1,000 patient-criterion pairs. The team also conducted a pilot user study, where two human clinicians reviewed six anonymous patient summaries and matched them to potentially suitable clinical trials. When clinicians used TrialGPT as a starting point, they spent 40% less time screening patients and maintained the same level of accuracy. The research team was selected for the Director’s Challenge Innovation Award, which will allow the team to further assess the model’s performance and fairness in real-world clinical settings. The researchers “anticipate that this work could make clinical trial recruitment more effective and help reduce barriers to participation for populations underrepresented in clinical research.”
