Using artificial intelligence to predict cardiovascular disease

An international team of researchers has developed a way to use artificial intelligence to predict the risk of a patient developing cardiovascular disease. In their paper published in the journal Nature Biological Engineering, the group describes using retinal blood vessel scans as a data-source for a deep learning system to teach it to recognize the signs of cardiovascular disease in people. For over 100 years, doctors have peered into the eyes of patients looking for changes in retinal vasculature--blood vessels in the retina that can reflect the impact of high blood pressure over a period of time. Such an impact can be an indicator of impending cardiovascular disease. Over time, medical scientists have developed instruments that allow eye doctors to get a better look at the parts of the eye most susceptible to damage from hypertension and have used them as a part of a process to diagnose patients that are likely to develop the disease. But such tools still require a medical professional to make the final call.