Beyond Single View: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Medical Multimodal Large Language Models on Multi-Image Understanding

Recent advancements in Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated impressive capabilities in interpreting single medical images. However, real-world clinical diagnosis is intrinsically a multi-view process, requiring the synthesis of information across volumetric slices, temporal sequences, and comparative modalities. Existing benchmarks fail to capture this complexity, limiting the assessment of models in realistic clinical workflows. To bridge this gap, we introduce MedMultiBench, the first large-scale benchmark specifically designed for medical multi-image understanding. Comprising 11,392 expert-curated samples, Med-MultiBench evaluates MLLMs across four distinct dimensions: Joint Reasoning, Comparative Analysis, Comprehensive Perception, and In-Context Learning. We benchmark 13 stateof-the-art MLLMs, revealing that while current models excel in single-view tasks, they struggle significantly with multi-image contexts. Our experiments identify a performance degradation in open-source models when processing increased visual loads, whereas closed-source models demonstrate better scalability. Med-MultiBench provides a robust framework to facilitate the development of MLLMs capable of holistic clinical reasoning.