The United Kingdom's National Health Service in England is set to test a "superhuman" artificial intelligence (AI) model that potentially can predict an individual's risk of developing and passing away early from heart disease.
The new AI model, referred to as AI-ECG risk estimation, or "Aire," has been trained to read the results of electrocardiogram (ECG) tests. These tests record electrical activity, heart rates and heart rhythms in people's hearts and are used by doctors to diagnose potential heart problems like heart disease and myocardial infections. (Related: Nearly half of FDA-approved AI-powered medical devices lack clinical validation data.)
Researchers who are promoting Aire claim the AI model can also detect problems in the structures of hearts that diagnosticians may initially miss. If these problems are found, Aire will immediately alert patients, who may benefit from further monitoring, tests or treatments.
Aire will be rolled out in hospitals under the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, encompassing seven hospitals in central London. The first round of experiments will enroll hundreds of patients, with the number of recruited patients scaling up in further studies.
If these trials are deemed successful by NHS leadership, Aire could become a common feature in all NHS trusts in five to 10 years. Reports from the U.K. indicate that around one in five licensed medical practitioners already resort to AI programs like the popular chatbot ChatGPT in clinical practice, such as by helping write letters for patients after appointments or even by asking chatbots to help diagnose illnesses.
Surveys also indicate that a majority of people in the U.K. are in favor of implementing AI to support the healthcare sector's patient care efforts. However, around one in six people are concerned that relying too much on AI could make the quality of healthcare worse.
Researchers claim Aire can correctly predict risk of fatal heart disease at a consistently high rate
Researchers, in their study published in the journal Lancet Digital Health claim that Aire can correctly predict a patient's risk of dying from heart disease at a consistently high rate.
Aire was trained on a dataset of over 1.16 million ECG test results from 189,539 patients. Aire then used these results to predict "not only risk of mortality but time-to-mortality" by creating a "survival curve," according to the scientists.
Researchers claim that Aire can predict future heart failure in 79 percent of cases, future serious – potentially fatal – heart rhythm problems in 76 percent of cases, and future atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease – a condition wherein blood flow is restricted by narrowing arteries – in 70 percent of cases.
"The vision is every ECG that will be done in hospital will be put through the model. So, anyone who has an ECG anywhere in the NHS in 10 years' time, or five years' time, would be put through the models and the clinicians will be informed, not just about what the diagnosis is, but a prediction of a whole range of health risks, which means that we can then intervene early and prevent disease," said Dr. Fu Siong Ng, a cardiologist working at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
"If, for example, it says you're at high risk of a specific heart rhythm problem, you could be more aggressive in preventative treatment to prevent it from happening," he continued. "There are some linked to weight, so you can put them through weight-loss programs. You might even think about earlier medical treatments to prevent things from progressing."
Watch this video from Natural News discussing how regularly drinking unsalted tomato juice can lower the risk of developing a heart disease.
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