Artificial intelligence can examine electrocardiogram (ECG) test results, a common medical test, to pinpoint patients at higher risk of developing a potentially dangerous irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) or of dying within the next year, according to two preliminary studies to be presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2019 -- November 16-18 in Philadelphia. The Association's Scientific Sessions is an annual, premier global exchange of the latest advances in cardiovascular science for researchers and clinicians. Researchers used more than 2 million ECG results from more than three decades of archived medical records in Pennsylvania/New Jersey's Geisinger Health System to train deep neural networks -- advanced, multi-layered computational structures. Both studies, from the same group of researchers, are among the first to use artificial intelligence to predict future events from an ECG rather than to detect current health problems, the scientists noted. "This is exciting and provides more evidence that we are on the verge of a revolution in medicine where computers will be working alongside physicians to improve patient care," said Brandon Fornwalt, M.D., Ph.D., senior author on both studies and associate professor and chair of the Department of Imaging Science and Innovation at Geisinger in Danville, Pennsylvania. Researchers speculated that a deep learning model could predict irregular heart rhythms, known as atrial fibrillation (AF), before it develops.

Artificial intelligence can be used to accurately examine electrocardiogram (ECG) test results, according to the findings of two preliminary studies being presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2019 in Philadelphia, PA. In the first study, researchers evaluated 1.1 million ECGs that did indicate atrial fibrillation (AF) from more than 237,000 patients. They used specialized computational hardware to train a deep neutral network to assess 30,000 data points for each respective ECG. The results showed that approximately one in three people received an AF diagnosis within a year. Moreover, the model demonstrated the capacity for long-term prognostic significance as patients predicted to develop AF after one year had a 45% higher hazard rate in developing AF over a follow-up duration of 25-years compared to other patients.