Grok tells a man sent home to demand a CT; appendix near rupture

Grok (xAI conversational assistant), used in the browser

Not assessed

Exact release not established.

xAI

Grok proposed possible causes of the symptoms and suggested seeking urgent clinical assessment.

The participant used Grok in a desktop browser in December 2025.

Not assessed

Not assessed

A patient with hours of constant, severe abdominal pain who had been examined, given an acid blocker and sent home without imaging. A detailed symptom description put to a general chatbot: constant pain, worse lying flat, eased by sitting with knees to chest, no fever. It matched these to surgical causes and said so without hedging. A second clinical contact the next day at which the patient repeated the chatbot's reasoning and asked for a CT.

Clinicians ordered the imaging and decided that surgery was needed.

The shared conversation shows what Grok contributed. He described constant pain for six hours, worse lying flat and eased by sitting with knees to chest, with no fever. Grok ranked perforated peptic ulcer first and early or atypical appendicitis second. It called that a pattern doctors take very seriously. It urged an ER visit that night for a CT or ultrasound. Once he said the legevakt had sent him home with Somac, it scripted a request for a senior doctor and a CT scan. He told Grok afterwards that asking for the CT got him prioritized for surgery. Whether his local physician or the hospital would have imaged him without that request is unknown. TipRanks reports from the thread that he told the doctors his sister, a nurse, had suggested the scan. The Reddit post the press quoted was drafted by Grok from his description. It says he walked back to the ER, where his later comments say the physician referred him the next day.

Grok recommended urgent abdominal imaging and helped the patient ask for a CT scan after he had been sent home. He reported that his request expedited surgery.

Not assessed

Grok told a 49-year-old Norwegian sent home with an acid blocker to demand a CT; it found an appendix near rupture, removed 3 December 2025.

Improved Physical Health

Not assessed

People.

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Yes

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

The patient’s accounts differ on whether he returned to the emergency department himself or received a referral the next day. The available evidence does not establish whether clinicians would have ordered imaging without his request.

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Developer: xAI. Operator: xAI (Grok web app).

Benefit: Norway. Developer: United States. Operator: United States.

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

The chatbot's differential includes the true cause. Here it ranked perforated ulcer first and atypical appendicitis second, and the second was right. A clinician agrees to image. The referral here came from his local physician. Whether the request changed her decision is unknown. Such cases are self-published. No clinician, hospital or document has confirmed this one. The first-person post was itself drafted by the chatbot. So the record stands or falls with his account and the shared transcript.

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

AIBD-0137-source-0001–0010

Numbered references below.

Not assessed

Beneficiary, Independent, Developer

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

People.

People: 3.

People: An appendix the man says the CT showed close to rupturing was removed on 3 December 2025. The pain was gone and he went home the next day. He and Musk call it life-saving. That rests on his account and a ward photo. No clinician, hospital or record has spoken. A doctor commenting in the thread said severe abdominal pain in a younger patient almost always gets a CT. So life-saving is not established.

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Not assessed

Independently reported

Not assessed

Not assessed

Healthcare (emergency self-triage). Consumer use of a general chatbot for triage advice.

Grok is xAI's general-purpose conversational assistant. Answering a description of symptoms with possible causes and advice on when to seek care is within that general use. The man had used it for a year on other topics. xAI did not build it as a medical device. The benefit was ordinary use, not an unexpected one. After the event Musk posted “Try it!” about Grok for medical questions.

Date basis unassessed: 2025 (precision unassessed). Updated: 21 October 2026.

Not assessed

SHA-256: a6e560bbfb3f…

oecd_aim: 2025-12-05-11cb.

Not assessed

Not assessed

5 revisions. Latest: 21 October 2026.