MedCoRAG: Interpretable Hepatology Diagnosis via Hybrid Evidence Retrieval and Multispecialty Consensus
arXiv:2603.05129v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Diagnosing hepatic diseases accurately and interpretably is critical, yet it remains challenging in real-world clinical settings. Existing AI approaches for clinical diagnosis often lack transparency, structured reasoning, and deployability. Recent efforts have leveraged large language models (LLMs), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and multi-agent collaboration. However, these approaches typically retrieve evidence from a single source and fail to support iterative, role-specialized deliberation grounded in structured clinical data. To address this, we propose MedCoRAG (i.e., Medical Collaborative RAG), an end-to-end framework that generates diagnostic hypotheses from standardized abnormal findings and constructs a patient-specific evidence package by jointly retrieving and pruning UMLS knowledge graph paths and clinical guidelines. It then performs Multi-Agent Collaborative Reasoning: a Router Agent dynamically dispatches Speciali
arXiv:2603.05129v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Diagnosing hepatic diseases accurately and interpretably is critical, yet it remains challenging in real-world clinical settings. Existing AI approaches for clinical diagnosis often lack transparency, structured reasoning, and deployability. Recent efforts have leveraged large language models (LLMs), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and multi-agent collaboration. However, these approaches typically retrieve evidence from a single source and fail to support iterative, role-specialized deliberation grounded in structured clinical data. To address this, we propose MedCoRAG (i.e., Medical Collaborative RAG), an end-to-end framework that generates diagnostic hypotheses from standardized abnormal findings and constructs a patient-specific evidence package by jointly retrieving and pruning UMLS knowledge graph paths and clinical guidelines. It then performs Multi-Agent Collaborative Reasoning: a Router Agent dynamically dispatches Specialist Agents based on case complexity; these agents iteratively reason over the evidence and trigger targeted re-retrievals when needed, while a Generalist Agent synthesizes all deliberations into a traceable consensus diagnosis that emulates multidisciplinary consultation. Experimental results on hepatic disease cases from MIMIC-IV show that MedCoRAG outperforms existing methods and closed-source models in both diagnostic performance and reasoning interpretability.
Executive Summary
The article proposes MedCoRAG, a hybrid framework for interpretable hepatology diagnosis. It combines evidence retrieval and multispecialty consensus to generate diagnostic hypotheses from standardized abnormal findings. MedCoRAG outperforms existing methods in diagnostic performance and reasoning interpretability, demonstrating its potential for accurate and transparent clinical diagnosis. The framework's ability to retrieve and prune UMLS knowledge graph paths and clinical guidelines enables iterative, role-specialized deliberation grounded in structured clinical data.
Key Points
- ▸ MedCoRAG is an end-to-end framework for interpretable hepatology diagnosis
- ▸ It combines evidence retrieval and multispecialty consensus for diagnostic hypothesis generation
- ▸ The framework achieves state-of-the-art performance in diagnostic accuracy and reasoning interpretability
Merits
Improved Diagnostic Accuracy
MedCoRAG's hybrid approach enables more accurate diagnoses by leveraging both evidence retrieval and multispecialty consensus
Enhanced Interpretability
The framework's transparent and structured reasoning process facilitates understanding of diagnostic decisions
Demerits
Complexity and Scalability
MedCoRAG's iterative and multispecialty approach may introduce complexity and scalability challenges in real-world clinical settings
Expert Commentary
The proposed MedCoRAG framework represents a significant advancement in the development of interpretable and accurate clinical diagnosis systems. By integrating evidence retrieval and multispecialty consensus, MedCoRAG addresses key limitations of existing AI approaches. However, further research is needed to address potential scalability and complexity challenges. The framework's focus on transparency and interpretability also has important implications for the development of explainable AI in healthcare, highlighting the need for more accountable and trustworthy clinical decision support systems.
Recommendations
- ✓ Future studies should investigate the application of MedCoRAG to other medical specialties and evaluate its performance in real-world clinical settings
- ✓ Researchers should also explore strategies to address potential complexity and scalability challenges, ensuring the framework's practical deployability