• Tim Leypold, Jörg Bahm, Justus P Beier, Vincent G J Guillaume, Tekoshin Ammo, Henrik Lauer, Jonas Kolbenschlag, and Benedikt Schäfer.
• Department of Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery-Burn Center, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Pauwelsstraße 30, 52074 Aachen, Germany. Electronic address: tleypold@ukaachen.de.
• World Neurosurg. 2025 Feb 7: 123753123753.

AbstractArtificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance in healthcare, offering innovative approaches to enhance clinical decision-making and patient management. Peripheral nerve surgery poses unique challenges due to the complexity of cases and the need for precise diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. This study investigates the application of OpenAI's generative AI model, o1, in assisting with intricate decision-making processes in peripheral nerve surgery. Utilizing advanced prompt engineering techniques, o1 was configured as a virtual medical assistant (GPT-NS) to process five simulated clinical scenarios modeled after real-world cases. The AI guided surgeons through medical history, diagnostics, and treatment planning, culminating in case summaries. A panel of nerve surgery specialists and residents evaluated the AI's performance using a Likert scale across seven criteria. GPT-NS demonstrated strong capabilities, achieving an average score of 4.3. High ratings were observed for understanding clinical issues and case presentation clarity. However, areas for improvement were noted in diagnostic sequencing and treatment recommendations. Despite a lower score indicating human evaluators' perception of their superiority over the AI in handling cases, GPT-NS showed promise as a supportive tool in clinical practice. As the performance of LLM (Large Language Model) AI continues to improve, it is becoming increasingly important that absolute experts assess the accuracy of the answers to ensure reliable and clinically sound integration into healthcare practices. This study underscores the potential of LLM AI in augmenting clinical decision-making in highly specialized fields like peripheral nerve surgery while demonstrating the ongoing importance of human expertise. Future research should explore ways to further refine AI capabilities and assess its integration into routine surgical workflows.Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

5 keywords...

hide…