MedCAT v2: a modular, extensible architecture for clinical named entity recognition and linking under real-world privacy and compute constraints
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: MedCAT is an open-source framework for clinical named entity recognition and linking (NER+L) widely used in research and healthcare settings.We present MedCAT v2, a reengineered version designed to improve modularity, extensibility, and maintainability while preserving the core functionality and performance of previous releases.The new architecture introduces a registry-based component system and a flexible pipeline that enables easy substitution of components, integration of alternative methods, and future expansion, including support for pre-trained components across the full NER+L and contextualisation workflow.This enables systematic exploration of clinical NER+L design trade-offs by evaluating different components in the pipeline.Evaluation across multiple public datasets shows equivalent or improved performance compared to earlier versions, with reduced integration overhead and improved runtime flexibility.The framework also supports optional extensions such as meta-annotation, relation extraction, providing a unified and reproducible environment for clinical NLP in real-world settings.
Institution: King's College London
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7166828615