How the NHS is using deep learning to combat coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the leading causes of death in the UK; it's responsible for more than 66,000 deaths each year, and it's estimated that 2.3 million people in the UK are currently living with the disease. Imaging is an important part of diagnosing people and managing treatment with a range of cardiovascular diseases, and the NHS uses Echo, MRI and CT scans to do this. A CT scan is used to do a coronary CT angiography, which involves taking images of the heart blood vessels and using the CT scan with some dye contrast into the blood vessels. This enables doctors to see if blood vessels are narrowing, causing patients to have chest pain or angina. The test has been around for the last 10 or 15 years but has increased in usage as radiation doses have decreased dramatically.