Otolaryngology (ENT)

Pivotal device trials report demographics but rarely embed equity analyses

This scoping review of 74 pivotal device investigations found age and sex were almost always reported, but only 18.9% conducted age subgroup analyses. Race/ethnicity appeared in 35.1% of studies and was rarely used in outcome analyses. Only 2.7% of trials explicitly framed equity in design or recruitment, and none applied CONSORT-Equity or population benchmarking. The authors conclude limited EDI integration constrains assessment of external validity for device approvals. 1

PD-L1–stratified meta-analysis: ICIs help PD-L1–positive but harm PD-L1–negative LA HNSCC

Pooling seven RCTs (n=3605) showed no overall PFS benefit for ICIs (HR 0.90; 95% CI 0.77–1.06). In PD-L1–positive tumors, ICIs improved PFS (HR 0.78; 95% CI 0.67–0.91). In PD-L1–negative tumors, ICIs were associated with worse PFS (HR 1.31; 95% CI 1.02–1.68). Cisplatin-eligible subgroup analyses mirrored the PD-L1 pattern; cisplatin-ineligible patients saw no PFS benefit. 2

On-premises LLMs extract prognostic HN oncology data with high accuracy

A locally deployed LLM extracted 30 prognostic fields from 1,360 reports (882 patients) achieving 98.6% F1 against a clinician reference. Processing speed was about 53 seconds per report for the top model. LLM-extracted HPV status, smoking, and Charlson score added prognostic value to multivariable Cox models (p=0.014 and p=0.026). Authors propose on-premises LLMs for privacy-preserving tumor board support and longitudinal data curation, with clinician oversight. 3