AI Technology Can Predict Life-Threatening Heart Trouble, Researchers Say
In a groundbreaking stride towards predictive healthcare, researchers at Johns Hopkins University have unveiled a remarkable development: artificial intelligence (AI) technology capable of assessing a patient’s risk of sudden cardiac death, a harrowing scenario where the heart unexpectedly ceases to function. This innovation, as reported by the team led by Dr. Natalia Trayanova, a professor of biomedical engineering and medicine, holds the promise of revolutionizing cardiac care by offering advanced predictive insights that could potentially save countless lives.
At the heart of this breakthrough lies the fusion of deep learning algorithms with medical imaging and clinical data analysis. Dr. Trayanova’s team devised an AI model that can forecast a patient’s likelihood of experiencing sudden cardiac death over a decade-long span. By scrutinizing minute details within MRI scans, particularly focusing on scar tissue patterns imperceptible to the human eye, the AI algorithm can discern subtle indicators indicative of heightened risk.
She said this survival predictor is the first of its kind and works by analyzing scar tissue in a patient’s heart, which detects patterns invisible to the naked eye.
“We can say the patient will have an episode in five years and we are certain 80% that that’s going to happen,” Trayanova said. “For other patients, we can say that they’d be such that we can predict the patient and will have it in six years, but our certainty is only 40% for it.”
The artificial intelligence works off an algorithm created from MRI scans and the medical history of more than 200 real patients with heart disease at Johns Hopkins Hospital, all uploaded into a network to create this high-tech tool.
“We trained the algorithm to look at the images, learn from the images,” Trayanova said.
Dr. Trayanova said the technology could revolutionize the way clinical decisions are made, protecting those who may otherwise be sent home, not knowing they’re at high risk.
“Some of them might die in the prime of their life because they are not protected. So what these do is provides a much more accurate prediction of what is the chance of a patient to have an event,” Trayanova said.
According to researchers, the algorithm’s predictions were more accurate than those of doctors.
Although more clinical trials are needed to confirm the findings, the hope is this AI technology could one day help physicians tailor treatments for patients based on their own unique risk.
“This is our goal at Hopkins, is to take what is developed by engineers and computer scientists and bring it in the clinic directly,” Trayanova said.
Researchers are now working to build algorithms to test other types of heart disease.
Heart disease remains the №1 killer in the United States, and sudden cardiac death caused by arrhythmia accounts for as many as 20% of all deaths worldwide.
