Daniil Filienko

Daniil Filienko, Yinzhou Wang, Caroline El Jazmi et al. · uw

While Large Language Models (LLMs) are being quickly adapted to many domains, including healthcare, their strengths and pitfalls remain under-explored. In our study, we examine the effects of prompt engineering to guide Large Language Models (LLMs) in delivering parts of a Problem-Solving Therapy (PST) session via text, particularly during the symptom identification and assessment phase for personalized goal setting. We present evaluation results of the models' performances by automatic metrics and experienced medical professionals. We demonstrate that the models' capability to deliver protocolized therapy can be improved with the proper use of prompt engineering methods, albeit with limitations. To our knowledge, this study is among the first to assess the effects of various prompting techniques in enhancing a generalist model's ability to deliver psychotherapy, focusing on overall quality, consistency, and empathy. Exploring LLMs' potential in delivering psychotherapy holds promise with the current shortage of mental health professionals amid significant needs, enhancing the potential utility of AI-based and AI-enhanced care services.

Christopher Wiedeman, Anastasiia Sarmakeeva, Elena Sizikova et al.

One of the key impediments for developing and assessing robust medical imaging algorithms is limited access to large-scale datasets with suitable annotations. Synthetic data generated with plausible physical and biological constraints may address some of these data limitations. We propose the use of physics simulations to generate synthetic images with pixel-level segmentation annotations, which are notoriously difficult to obtain. Specifically, we apply this approach to breast imaging analysis and release T-SYNTH, a large-scale open-source dataset of paired 2D digital mammography (DM) and 3D digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) images. Our initial experimental results indicate that T-SYNTH images show promise for augmenting limited real patient datasets for detection tasks in DM and DBT. Our data and code are publicly available at https://github.com/DIDSR/tsynth-release.

Daniil Filienko, Martine De Cock, Sikha Pentyala

Access to genomic data is highly regulated due to its sensitive nature. While safeguards are essential, cumbersome data access processes pose a significant barrier to the development of AI methods for genomics. Synthetic data generation can mitigate this tension by enabling broader data sharing without exposing sensitive information. Synthetic genomic data are produced by training generative models on real data and subsequently sampling artificial data that preserves relevant statistics while limiting disclosures about the underlying individuals. In some settings, a single data holder may have sufficient data to train such generative models; however, in many applications data must be combined across multiple sites to achieve adequate scale. This need arises, e.g., in rare disease studies, where individual hospitals typically hold data for only a small number of patients. The solution we present in this paper enables multiple data holders to jointly train a synthetic data generator without revealing their raw data. Our approach combines secure multiparty computation (MPC) to ensure input privacy, so that no party ever discloses its data in unencrypted form, with differential privacy (DP) to provide output privacy by mitigating information leakage from the released synthetic data. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method by generating high-utility synthetic datasets from multiple real RNA-seq cohorts in federated settings, showing that our approach enables privacy-preserving data synthesis even when data are distributed across institutions.

Liying Wang, Ph. D., Daffodil Carrington et al. · uw

Family caregivers often face substantial mental health challenges due to their multifaceted roles and limited resources. This study explored the potential of a large language model (LLM)-powered conversational agent to deliver evidence-based mental health support for caregivers, specifically Problem-Solving Therapy (PST) integrated with Motivational Interviewing (MI) and Behavioral Chain Analysis (BCA). A within-subject experiment was conducted with 28 caregivers interacting with four LLM configurations to evaluate empathy and therapeutic alliance. The best-performing models incorporated Few-Shot and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) prompting techniques, alongside clinician-curated examples. The models showed improved contextual understanding and personalized support, as reflected by qualitative responses and quantitative ratings on perceived empathy and therapeutic alliances. Participants valued the model's ability to validate emotions, explore unexpressed feelings, and provide actionable strategies. However, balancing thorough assessment with efficient advice delivery remains a challenge. This work highlights the potential of LLMs in delivering empathetic and tailored support for family caregivers.

Daniil Filienko, Mahek Nizar, Javier Roberti et al. · uw

Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death from an infectious disease globally, with the highest burden in low- and middle-income countries. In these regions, limited healthcare access and high patient-to-provider ratios impede effective patient support, communication, and treatment completion. To bridge this gap, we propose integrating a specialized Large Language Model into an efficacious digital adherence technology to augment interactive communication with treatment supporters. This AI-powered approach, operating within a human-in-the-loop framework, aims to enhance patient engagement and improve TB treatment outcomes.