REVIEW 2 cited by
DiagnosisArena: Benchmarking Diagnostic Reasoning for Large Language Models
T0 review · reviewed 2026-08-07 · deepseek-v4-flash
Pith's one-line read DiagnosisArena, a 1,113-case benchmark from top journals, shows state-of-the-art LLMs achieve at most 51% top-1 diagnostic accuracy, far below clinical-level competence.
desk verdict A genuinely useful hard-case benchmark for LLM diagnosis, but the 'far from professional-level' headline needs a human baseline it doesn't have. read the letter →
The pith
A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.
The reading
The authors asked many AI models to list their top five diagnoses for each case. Even the strongest model tested, OpenAI's o3, got the exact diagnosis right only about 51% of the time. Older models such as o1 scored 31% and DeepSeek-R1 scored 18%. When the same cases were turned into multiple-choice questions, model scores jumped sharply; o1 rose from 31% to about 62%. This gap suggests that selecting an answer from a list is much easier than generating the correct diagnosis from scratch.
The benchmark is meant to be a more realistic measure of clinical reasoning than tests based on medical licensing exam questions. However, the paper does not report how well human doctors perform on the same cases, and it relies on another AI model to judge whether an answer is correct. Those are important caveats for interpreting the headline numbers.
Extended reading notes
Core claim
The paper's central claim is that current LLMs, including advanced reasoning models, are far from professional-level diagnostic competence on realistic clinical cases: 'even the most advanced reasoning models, o3, o1, and DeepSeek-R1, achieve only 51.12%, 31.09%, and 17.79% accuracy, respectively' on DiagnosisArena, and 'multiple-choice formats inherently reduce task difficulty and thus fail to accurately reflect the models' true abilities' (Section 4.3). If correct, no current model can be relied upon for autonomous diagnosis on cases with sufficient clinical information to reach a diagnosis.
Load-bearing premise
The GPT-4o judge used to score open-ended outputs reliably reproduces human expert judgments of 'identical', 'relevant', and 'irrelevant' diagnoses. The paper does not validate this judge against human ratings, yet every reported top-1 and top-5 accuracy in Figure 3 depends on it. If the judge is miscalibrated, the headline numbers could be materially wrong. This assumption enters in Section 4.2 (GPT-4o Evaluation Prompt) and the results in Section 4.3.
Editorial analysis
A structured set of objections, weighed in public.
Assumptions & free parameters
free parameters (3)
- top_k_outputs =
5
- iterative_filtering_attempts =
2 attempts per model
- consensus_attempts_for_deepseek_r1 =
8 attempts
assumptions (4)
- domain assumption The published final diagnosis in each case report is correct and can serve as a single ground truth.
- domain assumption Case reports from 10 selected top-tier medical journals are representative of challenging real-world diagnostic scenarios.
- ad hoc to paper A case solved by any of Baichuan-M1, DeepSeek-V3, or GPT-4o in two attempts is too simple to test reasoning.
- ad hoc to paper GPT-4o scoring is equivalent to expert human scoring for the identical/relevant/irrelevant taxonomy.
Cite this review
Pith. "Pith review of DiagnosisArena: Benchmarking Diagnostic Reasoning for Large Language Models." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/XJ5LJAZE
@misc{pith2026250514107,
author = {Pith},
title = {Pith review of: DiagnosisArena: Benchmarking Diagnostic Reasoning for Large Language Models},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/XJ5LJAZE}},
note = {Machine review of arXiv:2505.14107}
}
read the original abstract
The emergence of groundbreaking large language models capable of performing complex reasoning tasks holds significant promise for addressing various scientific challenges, including those arising in complex clinical scenarios. To enable their safe and effective deployment in real-world healthcare settings, it is urgently necessary to benchmark the diagnostic capabilities of current models systematically. Given the limitations of existing medical benchmarks in evaluating advanced diagnostic reasoning, we present DiagnosisArena, a comprehensive and challenging benchmark designed to rigorously assess professional-level diagnostic competence. DiagnosisArena consists of 1,113 pairs of segmented patient cases and corresponding diagnoses, spanning 28 medical specialties, deriving from clinical case reports published in 10 top-tier medical journals. The benchmark is developed through a meticulous construction pipeline, involving multiple rounds of screening and review by both AI systems and human experts, with thorough checks conducted to prevent data leakage. Our study reveals that even the most advanced reasoning models, o3, o1, and DeepSeek-R1, achieve only 51.12%, 31.09%, and 17.79% accuracy, respectively. This finding highlights a significant generalization bottleneck in current large language models when faced with clinical diagnostic reasoning challenges. Through DiagnosisArena, we aim to drive further advancements in AI's diagnostic reasoning capabilities, enabling more effective solutions for real-world clinical diagnostic challenges. We provide the benchmark and evaluation tools for further research and development https://github.com/SPIRAL-MED/DiagnosisArena.
Figures
Figures from the paper (4 more)
Forward citations
Cited by 2 Pith papers
-
Evaluating Multi-Turn Multimodal Diagnostic Reasoning on Challenging Real-World Clinical Cases
A new 1,089-case multi-turn multimodal benchmark shows that even top AI medical diagnosticians are fully correct only ~34% of the time and frequently hallucinate reasoning.
-
DeepLens Diagnosis Agent: Agentic Workflow Design Lets a Small Reasoning Model Compete with Frontier LLMs
A 7B medical model wrapped in a five-stage diagnosis workflow beats frontier LLMs on DiagnosisArena, gaining +36 points over its own single-shot baseline.
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- Use appropriate Markdown syntax for headings based on the original heading hierarchy (e.g., ‘#‘, ‘##‘, ‘###‘)
Formatting Adjustments - Retain the original paragraph content and apply clear Markdown formatting while maintaining the original layout. - Use appropriate Markdown syntax for headings based on the original heading hierarchy (e.g., ‘#‘, ‘##‘, ‘###‘)
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[50]
- Completely delete citations and footnotes, including their in-text markers
Removal of Irrelevant Information - Remove all references, citations, footnotes, bibliographies, and any content unrelated to the main topic of the article. - Completely delete citations and footnotes, including their in-text markers
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[51]
Handling of Images and Tables - In the main text: Keep all image and table label (e.g., ”Figure 1”, ”Table 1”) but do not alter their placement or content. - Figure Information Section: At the end of the document, add a new section titled ‘## Figure Information‘, listing all i...
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[52]
- Only perform formatting and cleaning adjustments without modifying the original content
Maintaining Content Integrity - Ensure that the actual content remains unchanged, preserving the accuracy and completeness of the original text. - Only perform formatting and cleaning adjustments without modifying the original content. Make sure the final output adheres to Mar...
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[53]
**Case Information**: Includes the patient’s basic details (e.g., gender, age, occupation), medical history (past medical history, family history, current medical history), and disease progression. - **Important Requirement**: If the case report explicitly mentions a disease n...
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[54]
- **Prohibited Content**: Any direct diagnostic statements involving disease names
**Physical Examination**: Includes the results of the patient’s physical examination during the initial consultation or hospital admission, presenting all clinical signs found in the examination. - **Prohibited Content**: Any direct diagnostic statements involving disease names
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[55]
**Diagnostic Tests**: Includes laboratory tests, imaging examinations, pathological examinations, and other auxiliary test results, categorized by test type. - **Handling of Images and Tables**: - If the case report contains images or tables of imaging studies, lab reports, et...
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[56]
**Final Diagnosis**: The doctor’s final diagnosis for the patient, which should concisely and accurately summarize the disease name or diagnostic conclusion. Output Format Requirements: - Your response should be a JSON dictionary containing four keys: ‘”Case Information”‘, ‘”P...
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[57]
DiagnosisArena-MCQ Evaluation Prompt You are an expert in the field of rare diseases
Disease B; ... DiagnosisArena-MCQ Evaluation Prompt You are an expert in the field of rare diseases. You will receive a medical case file, including Case Information, Physical Examination and Diagnostic Tests. Please conduct a thorough analysis based on the provided informatio...
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[58]
Disease 1 name: score X
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[59]
C Cases C.1 Benchmark Cases In this case, Case Information, Physical Examination, and Diagnostic Tests are components of the patient’s medical record
Disease 2 name: score X; ... C Cases C.1 Benchmark Cases In this case, Case Information, Physical Examination, and Diagnostic Tests are components of the patient’s medical record. This structured layout is clearer. The Final Diagnosis represents the final diagnostic result bas...
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[60]
Highly mobile, filamentous, causing embolic symptoms or arrhythmias
Papillary fibroelastoma: common on valves, but can be in LVOT. Highly mobile, filamentous, causing embolic symptoms or arrhythmias. The size (25mm) is a bit large but possible
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[61]
Could be in LVOT, leading to similar symptoms
Lambl’s excrescence: smaller, filamentous, typically on valves. Could be in LVOT, leading to similar symptoms
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[62]
Mobile and can cause obstruction
Myxoma: though typically atrial, but rare in LVOT. Mobile and can cause obstruction
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[63]
Thrombus: less likely given normal LV function, but possible if there’s another source
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[64]
Wait, but the movement pattern and CT findings might make fibroelastoma more likely than Lambl’s
Vegetation: if considering infective endocarditis despite lack of symptoms. Wait, but the movement pattern and CT findings might make fibroelastoma more likely than Lambl’s. Also, the length is 25mm, which is larger than typical Lambl’s. Fibroelastomas can be larger. So maybe ...
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[66]
The key is the mobile mass in LVOT causing possible embolic events (leading to AFib) or obstruction
Vegetation But also, could there be a false tendon or another structure? But those usually don’t cause symptoms. The key is the mobile mass in LVOT causing possible embolic events (leading to AFib) or obstruction. Fibroelastoma is the most likely, followed by Lambl’s. Myxoma l...
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[67]
Papillary fibroelastoma
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[68]
Infective endocarditis vegetation 19
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arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.03300
Measuring massive multitask language understanding. arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.03300
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Chain-of-thought prompting elicits reasoning in large language models. Advances in neural information processing systems, 35:24824–24837
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arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.12671
Baichuan-m1: Pushing the medical capability of large language models. arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.12671
Reviewed August 7, 2026 · model on record in the stance chip above.
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