From Text to Multimodality: Exploring the Evolution and Impact of Large Language Models in Medical Practice
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Abstract (arXiv)
Large Language Models (LLMs) have rapidly evolved from text-based systems to multimodal platforms, significantly impacting various sectors including healthcare. This comprehensive review explores the progression of LLMs to Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) and their growing influence in medical practice. We examine the current landscape of MLLMs in healthcare, analyzing their applications across clinical decision support, medical imaging, patient engagement, and research. The review highlights the unique capabilities of MLLMs in integrating diverse data types, such as text, images, and audio, to provide more comprehensive insights into patient health. We also address the challenges facing MLLM implementation, including data limitations, technical hurdles, and ethical considerations. By identifying key research gaps, this paper aims to guide future investigations in areas such as dataset development, modality alignment methods, and the establishment of ethical guidelines. As MLLMs continue to shape the future of healthcare, understanding their potential and limitations is crucial for their responsible and effective integration into medical practice.
Key facts. Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 59 of its 112 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 Sep 2024.
Builds on
59 of 112 references.
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38 more
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50 most cited of 59 All 59 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2024: 2; 2025: 4; 2026: 2.
8 papers.
- 2024Large Language Model Benchmarks in Medical Taskscited by 17
- 2025Mitigating Visual Knowledge Forgetting in MLLM Instruction-tuning via Modality-decoupled Gradient Descentcited by 13
- 2025Speeding up Speculative Decoding via Sequential Approximate Verificationcited by 11
- 2025Retrieval-augmented in-context learning for multimodal large language models in disease classificationcited by 5
- 2024The Cat and Mouse Game: The Ongoing Arms Race Between Diffusion Models and Detection Methodscited by 4
- 2025SwasthLLM: a Unified Cross-Lingual, Multi-Task, and Meta-Learning Zero-Shot Framework for Medical Diagnosis Using Contrastive Representationscited by 0
- 2026EVLA: An Electro-Aware Multimodal Assistant for Physically-Grounded Driving Reasoning and Controlcited by 0
- 2026Beyond Skepticism: Evaluating LLMs Pedagogical Intent Reasoning with the Adaptive Pedagogical Vigilance Frameworkcited by 0
- 2026Beyond Skepticism: Evaluating LLMs Pedagogical Intent Reasoning with the Adaptive Pedagogical Vigilance Framework2 Jul 2026
- 2026EVLA: An Electro-Aware Multimodal Assistant for Physically-Grounded Driving Reasoning and Control27 Jun 2026
- 2025SwasthLLM: a Unified Cross-Lingual, Multi-Task, and Meta-Learning Zero-Shot Framework for Medical Diagnosis Using Contrastive Representations24 Sep 2025
- 2025Retrieval-augmented in-context learning for multimodal large language models in disease classification4 May 2025
- 2025Mitigating Visual Knowledge Forgetting in MLLM Instruction-tuning via Modality-decoupled Gradient Descent17 Feb 2025
- 2025Speeding up Speculative Decoding via Sequential Approximate Verification6 Feb 2025
- 2024Large Language Model Benchmarks in Medical Tasks28 Oct 2024
- 2024The Cat and Mouse Game: The Ongoing Arms Race Between Diffusion Models and Detection Methods24 Oct 2024
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