Easing the hour before surgery.
A randomized trial found that giving prostate-cancer patients AI-drafted, personalized answers before they met their surgeon lowered anxiety and reduced the surgeon’s workload.
- Maturity
- Demonstrated, stage 3 of 4
- Support
- 1 source · paper
- Evidence detail
- How we know ↓
The conversation before surgery carries a lot of fear, and surgeons have limited time to answer every question well.
Patients relied on a single, time-pressured face-to-face conversation to get their questions answered.
A locally deployed large language model drafted personalized answers to each patient’s questions before the in-person conversation.
What was shown, and what wasn’t
Shown
Among 268 randomized patients, the AI-assisted group reported lower anxiety (GAD-7 3.2 vs 5.7) and lower physician workload (NASA-TLX 39.9 vs 56.8), with shorter conversations (11.3 vs 19.9 minutes); all differences were statistically significant.
Not shown · limits
- A single-centre trial of 268 patients in one cancer type, randomized by room. Bright reviewed the abstract of the peer-reviewed early-access paper; the specific model is not named there, and independent replication is unknown.
Bright editorial interpretation
For these patients, the tool eased a stressful moment and shortened the documented pre-operative conversation.
Still open
Does the benefit hold in other procedures, centres and patient populations?
Keep the evidence together · share a card
BRIGHT / EVIDENCE TO KEEP
Easing the hour before surgery.
Possible benefit · Bright interpretation
For these patients, the tool eased a stressful moment and shortened the documented pre-operative conversation.
Documented result · source-backed
Among 268 randomized patients, the AI-assisted group reported lower anxiety (GAD-7 3.2 vs 5.7) and lower physician workload (NASA-TLX 39.9 vs 56.8), with shorter conversations (11.3 vs 19.9 minutes); all differences were statistically significant.
Limits & unknowns
A single-centre trial of 268 patients in one cancer type, randomized by room. Bright reviewed the abstract of the peer-reviewed early-access paper; the specific model is not named there, and independent replication is unknown.
Does the benefit hold in other procedures, centres and patient populations?
Evidence state: Demonstrated. Source check: 2026-09-27. A source check is not independent replication.
LLM-assisted preoperative communication reduces patient anxiety and physician workload in prostate cancer: a prospective randomized phase II trial · npj Digital Medicine: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-026-03309-7
https://brightaifuture.com/discoveries/preop-llm
How we know1 source · checked 2026-09-27 · no corrections
Original sources
Institutions: Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center
- Maturity
- Demonstrated
- Claim confidence
- medium
- Source published
- 2026-09-26
- Captured
- 2026-09-27
- Last source review
- 2026-09-27
- Editorial method
- AI-assisted source review
- Place / relevance
- Shanghai, China · institution-location
Bright compared this account with the linked original and supporting sources and kept reported, budgeted, projected, and observed claims distinct. Bright did not independently audit the underlying records.
Maturity describes the tested or operational setting. Confidence describes support for the particular claim; one does not determine the other.
Revision & correction history
2026-09-27 · Added to Bright from the 27 Sep 2026 intake as a bounded, source-checked record.
No corrections recorded.
Keep exploring
Explore the shared question in another setting. These connections do not imply replication.