Lethal cardiac arrhythmias are one of the deadliest conditions but are hard to predict and therefore prevent. But what if an artificial intelligence (AI) system could provide some much-needed help? A study published this month in Nature Cardiovascular Research is outlining an AI that has been trained on raw images of patients' hearts as well as patient backgrounds to predict if and when a patient could die of cardiac arrest. The AI is currently reported to be much more effective at this task than a doctor, detecting patterns in heart MRIs invisible to the naked eye. "Sudden cardiac death caused by arrhythmia accounts for as many as 20 percent of all deaths worldwide and we know little about why it's happening or how to tell who's at risk," told SciTechDaily senior author Natalia Trayanova, the Murray B. Sachs Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine.

You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. A new artificial intelligence-based approach can predict if and when a patient could die of a heart attack. The technology, built on raw images of patient's diseased hearts and patient backgrounds, significantly improves on doctor's predictions and stands to revolutionize clinical decision making and increase survival from sudden and lethal cardiac arrhythmias, one of medicine's deadliest and most puzzling conditions. "Sudden cardiac death caused by arrhythmia accounts for as many as 20% of all deaths worldwide and we know little about why it's happening or how to tell who's at risk," says senior author Natalia Trayanova, a professor of biomedical engineering and medicine at Johns Hopkins University. "There are patients who may be at low risk of sudden cardiac death getting defibrillators that they might not need and then there are high-risk patients that aren't getting the treatment they need and could die in the prime of their life. What our algorithm can do is determine who is at risk for cardiac death and when it will occur, allowing doctors to decide exactly what needs to be done."

A new artificial-intelligence-based approach can predict if and when a patient could die of cardiac arrest, a recent study led by researchers at John Hopkins University has found. The technology, built on raw images of patients' diseased hearts and patient backgrounds, stands to revolutionize clinical decision-making and increase survival from sudden and lethal cardiac arrhythmias, one of medicine's deadliest and most puzzling conditions. The new study was published in the journal, 'Nature Cardiovascular Research'. "Sudden cardiac death caused by arrhythmia accounts for as many as 20 per cent of all deaths worldwide and we know little about why it's happening or how to tell who's at risk," said senior author Natalia Trayanova, the Murray B. Sachs Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine. "There are patients who may be at low risk of sudden cardiac death getting defibrillators that they might not need and then there are high-risk patients that aren't getting the treatment they need and could die in the prime of their life. What our algorithm can do is determine who is at risk for cardiac death and when it will occur, allowing doctors to decide exactly what needs to be done," she added.

A new artificial intelligence-based approach can predict, significantly more accurately than a doctor, if and when a patient could die of cardiac arrest. The technology, built on raw images of patient's diseased hearts and patient backgrounds, stands to revolutionize clinical decision making and increase survival from sudden and lethal cardiac arrhythmias, one of medicine's deadliest and most puzzling conditions. The work, led by Johns Hopkins University researchers, is detailed on April 7, 2022, in Nature Cardiovascular Research. "Sudden cardiac death caused by arrhythmia accounts for as many as 20 percent of all deaths worldwide and we know little about why it's happening or how to tell who's at risk," said senior author Natalia Trayanova, the Murray B. Sachs professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine. "There are patients who may be at low risk of sudden cardiac death getting defibrillators that they might not need and then there are high-risk patients that aren't getting the treatment they need and could die in the prime of their life. What our algorithm can do is determine who is at risk for cardiac death and when it will occur, allowing doctors to decide exactly what needs to be done."

It detected high risk in the heart circled in red. A new artificial intelligence-based approach can predict, significantly more accurately than a doctor, if and when a patient could die of cardiac arrest. The technology, built on raw images of patient's diseased hearts and patient backgrounds, stands to revolutionize clinical decision making and increase survival from sudden and lethal cardiac arrhythmias, one of medicine's deadliest and most puzzling conditions. The work, led by Johns Hopkins University researchers, is detailed today in Nature Cardiovascular Research. "Sudden cardiac death caused by arrhythmia accounts for as many as 20 percent of all deaths worldwide and we know little about why it's happening or how to tell who's at risk," said senior author Natalia Trayanova, the Murray B. Sachs professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine.

A new artificial intelligence-based approach being led by John Hopkins University researchers claims it can predict if and when a patient could die of cardiac arrest. The technology, built on raw images of patient's diseased hearts and patient backgrounds, significantly improves on doctor's predictions and stands to revolutionise clinical decision making and increase survival from sudden and lethal cardiac arrhythmias, one of medicine's deadliest and most puzzling conditions. "Sudden cardiac death caused by arrhythmia accounts for as many as 20% of all deaths worldwide and we know little about why it's happening or how to tell who's at risk," said senior author Natalia Trayanova (pictured), a professor of biomedical engineering and medicine. "There are patients who may be at low risk of sudden cardiac death getting defibrillators that they might not need and then there are high-risk patients that aren't getting the treatment they need and could die in the prime of their life. What our algorithm can do is determine who is at risk for cardiac death and when it will occur, allowing doctors to decide exactly what needs to be done."

Our aim was to evaluate the performance of machine learning (ML), integrating clinical parameters with coronary artery calcium (CAC), and automated epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) quantification, for the prediction of long-term risk of myocardial infarction (MI) and cardiac death in asymptomatic subjects. Our study included 1912 asymptomatic subjects [1117 (58.4%) male, age: 55.8 9.1 years] from the prospective EISNER trial with long-term follow-up after CAC scoring. EAT volume and density were quantified using a fully automated deep learning method. ML extreme gradient boosting was trained using clinical co-variates, plasma lipid panel measurements, risk factors, CAC, aortic calcium, and automated EAT measures, and validated using repeated 10-fold cross validation. During mean follow-up of 14.5 2 years, 76 events of MI and/or cardiac death occurred. ML obtained a significantly higher AUC than atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk and CAC score for predicting events (ML: 0.82; ASCVD: 0.77; CAC: 0.77, P 0.05 for all). Subjects with a higher ML score (by Youden's index) had high hazard of suffering events (HR: 10.38, P 0.001); the relationships persisted in multivariable analysis including ASCVD-risk and CAC measures (HR: 2.94, P 0.005). Age, ASCVD-risk, and CAC were prognostically important for both genders. Systolic blood pressure was more important than cholesterol in women, and the opposite in men.