Skip to main content

Artificial intelligence can now predict heart failure, and that may save lives

An artificial intelligence system has accurately predicted when patients with heart conditions will die, according to new results published in the journal Radiology.

The study was conducted by a team of scientists at the London Institute of Medical Services, who trained the software to analyze blood tests and intricate 3D models of beating hearts in order to detect signs of failure. The AI was assigned 256 patients diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, a type of high blood pressure which impacts the lungs and can cause dizziness, fainting, and shortness of breath.

Recommended Videos

By tracking the movement of 30,000 different points on a patient’s heart, it was able to construct an intricate 3D scan of the organ. Combining these models with patient health records going back eight years, the system could learn which abnormalities signaled a patient’s approaching death, making predictions about five years into the future.

The AI predicted with 80 percent accuracy which patients would die in the next year. The average doctor’s accuracy is about 60 percent.

Treatments for pulmonary hypertension include drugs, lung transplants, and targeted medicines, but the choice of treatment depends on the prognosis. As a result, an AI with such high accuracy can help physicians better treat patients.

“The AI really allows you to tailor the individual treatment,” Dr. Declan O’Regan, one on the researchers, told BBC News. “So it takes the results of dozens of different tests including imaging, to predict what’s going to happen to individual patients very accurately. So we can tailor getting absolutely the right intensive treatment to those who will benefit the most.”

AI software is becoming increasingly adept at diagnosing diseases. In July, Google announced success in diagnosing eye disease using machine learning software. A month earlier, researchers from Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) demonstrated a system that could detect breast cancer with 92 percent accuracy. When combined with the analysis of pathologists, that rate shot up to 99.5 percent.

“We expect the deep pathology network to continue to improve as it is trained on increasingly large and diverse pathology data sets,” Andrew Beck, Harvard professor and co-author of the study, told Digital Trends.

Dyllan Furness
Former Contributor
Dyllan Furness is a freelance writer from Florida. He covers strange science and emerging tech for Digital Trends, focusing…
The robot takeover comes another step closer — at Amazon
An Amazon robot working inside one of the company's warehouses.

Amazon is close to having more robots operating inside its warehouses than humans after the e-commerce giant announced this week that it now has more than a million robots working at its facilities around the world.

Over the years, Amazon has spent billions of dollars on the development and deployment of warehouse-based robots, which handle an array of tasks once performed by human workers.

Read more
This Lenovo ThinkPad laptop is over $1,400 off — hurry while stocks last!
The Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 Intel laptop on a white background.

Now's an excellent time to take advantage of laptop deals from Lenovo, which has slashed the prices of a wide range of devices for its Black Friday in July sale. Lenovo's ThinkPad laptops are up to 45% off, and here's one of the most interesting offers available with such a discount — the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 at $1,440 off its estimated value of $3,199, so you'll only have to pay $1,759. That's an excellent price for this fantastic productivity tool, but you're going to have to push forward with your purchase as soon as possible because stocks may run out at any moment.

BUY NOW

Read more
Early Prime Day deal: Samsung’s 27-inch Odyssey G3 at its annual low price
Samsung Odyssey G3 gaming monitor on desk with keyboard and headset.

If you're ready to upgrade your monitor, this Samsung deal over at Amazon just might be your best bet. The 27-inch version of Samsung's Odyssey G3 is $130 right now, a full $100 off its regular $230 price and its lowest price of the year. It's a part of early Prime Day deals and a good sampling of what we can expect for the shopping holiday, which officially lands on July 8th. Tap the button below to see it for yourself or keep reading to see why we like this deal and why this should be your next monitor.

Buy Now

Read more