AI Software Can Diagnose Heart Disease

By: | January 8th, 2018

Cardiologists can be very good at their jobs, but they are not infallible.

A cardiologist can diagnose a problem by observing the timing of a heartbeat in scans. But even the best cardiologist in the world can get it wrong sometimes.

In about 20 percent of cases each year, patients either undergo a needless operation or are sent home with a clean bill of health only to have a heart attack.

Artificial intelligence (AI) once again proves itself useful in the healthcare industry

An artificial intelligence system developed by researchers at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England, diagnoses heart scans much more accurately than even the best cardiologist, picking up details in scans that doctors sometimes miss. It can change the way doctors diagnose heart disease and lung cancer.

The AI, called Ultromics, was fed with the data from 1,000 heart scans of patients taken over the last seven years. The system was also informed if the patient went on to develop heart problems.  This information is used by Ultromics as a baseline to predict and diagnose the scans of new patients.

Nidhi Goyal

Nidhi is a gold medalist Post Graduate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

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