Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Sep;135(9):3049-3063.
doi: 10.1002/lary.32198. Epub 2025 May 1.

Applications of Natural Language Processing in Otolaryngology: A Scoping Review

Norbert Banyi  1 , Brian Ma  2 , Ameen Amanian  3 , Andrés Bur  4 , Arman Abdalkhani  3
Affiliations

Applications of Natural Language Processing in Otolaryngology: A Scoping Review

Norbert Banyi et al. Laryngoscope. 2025 Sep.

Abstract

Objective: To review the current literature on the applications of natural language processing (NLP) within the field of otolaryngology.

Data sources: MEDLINE, EMBASE, SCOPUS, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and CINAHL.

Methods: The preferred reporting Items for systematic reviews and meta-analyzes extension for scoping reviews checklist was followed. Databases were searched from the date of inception up to Dec 26, 2023. Original articles on the application of language-based models to otolaryngology patient care and research, regardless of publication date, were included. The studies were classified under the 2011 Oxford CEBM levels of evidence.

Results: One-hundred sixty-six papers with a median publication year of 2024 (range 1982, 2024) were included. Sixty-one percent (102/166) of studies used ChatGPT and were published in 2023 or 2024. Sixty studies used NLP for clinical education and decision support, 42 for patient education, 14 for electronic medical record improvement, 5 for triaging, 4 for trainee education, 4 for patient monitoring, 3 for telemedicine, and 1 for medical translation. For research, 37 studies used NLP for extraction, classification, or analysis of data, 17 for thematic analysis, 5 for evaluating scientific reporting, and 4 for manuscript preparation.

Conclusion: The role of NLP in otolaryngology is evolving, with ChatGPT passing OHNS board simulations, though its clinical application requires improvement. NLP shows potential in patient education and post-treatment monitoring. NLP is effective at extracting data from unstructured or large data sets. There is limited research on NLP in trainee education and administrative tasks. Guidelines for NLP use in research are critical.

Keywords: ChatGPT; artificial intelligence; big data; chatbots; data mining; generative AI; large language models; medical education; natural language processing; otolaryngology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Summary flowchart of the outcomes of the identification and screening process. Flow chart format has been adapted from the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for new systematic reviews [11]. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at www.laryngoscope.com.]
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Histogram of the year of publication distribution (binwidth = 1 year).
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Number of studies by specific applications of NLP for Clinical and Research Applications. A single study may contain multiple applications. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at www.laryngoscope.com.]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Amanian A., Heffernan A., Ishii M., Creighton F. X., and Thamboo A., “The Evolution and Application of Artificial Intelligence in Rhinology: A State of the Art Review,” Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery 169, no. 1 (2023): 21–30, 10.1177/01945998221110076. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wilson B. S., Tucci D. L., Moses D. A., et al., “Harnessing the Power of Artificial Intelligence in Otolaryngology and the Communication Sciences,” Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology 23, no. 3 (2022): 319–349, 10.1007/s10162-022-00846-2. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Haider S. P., Sharaf K., Baumeister P., and Reichel C. A., “Künstliche Intelligenz in der Hals‐Nasen‐Ohren‐Heilkunde,” HNO 70, no. 2 (2022): 87–93, 10.1007/s00106-021-01095-0. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Vaswani A., Shazeer N., Parmar N., et al., “Attention Is all You Need,” Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 30 (2023): 3762, 10.48550/arXiv.1706.03762. - DOI
    1. Paris M., “ChatGPT Hits 100 Million Users, Google Invests In AI Bot And CatGPT Goes Viral,” 2023. Forbes, accessed February 18, 2024, https://www.forbes.com/sites/martineparis/2023/02/03/chatgpt‐hits‐100‐mi....

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources