AI-driven credibility profiling of real-world patient experiences suggests overlooked kidney stone therapies warrant further investigation

Thousands of patients share their testimonials of kidney stone treatment efficacy online routinely, often with the hope of helping other patients understand what may help alleviate the severe suffering inflicted by the condition. Such testimonials generate vast data with potential hypothesis-generating insights that remain largely untapped. For this study, 4,899 publicly available online testimonials of nine different kidney stone products were collected across three different platforms: WebMD, Amazon, and Reddit. Using a state-of-the-art Large Language Model, these subjective reports were classified along multiple dimensions, focusing on reported effectiveness and rate of adverse effects. A methodology to minimize biases and extract statistically significant data from online testimonials is presented. Odds ratios and p-values were calculated using Phyllanthus niruri as the baseline. Phyllanthus niruri demonstrated significantly higher reported effectiveness across all platforms (27.6%–87.4%) compared to most other treatments, including allopurinol, tamsulosin, hydrochlorothiazide, and potassium citrate. On Amazon, Rowatinex showed the highest effectiveness rate (90.0%). Both Phyllanthus niruri and Rowatinex exhibited remarkably low adverse effect profiles across all platforms (3.9% and 4.5% weighted average, respectively), with Rowatinex notably reporting no severe adverse effects. The consistency of these findings across different platforms suggests that patient-reported outcomes for Phyllanthus niruri and Rowatinex may warrant further clinical investigation. The rising incidence and debilitating nature of kidney stones underscore the need for research into additional prophylactic and metaphylactic treatments beyond lifestyle interventions.