- Get link
- Other Apps
A discovery in the form of advanced artificial intelligence is said to be able to accurately predict a person's risk of heart disease. The results can even come out in less than a minute just by scanning the eye.
The discovery is considered to open the door to a very effective examination that does not need to be done in a clinic. This is because ophthalmologists and other health workers make it possible to carry out cardiovascular screening on the road using a camera, without the need for a blood test.
The researchers found that artificial intelligence (AI) enabled retinal vein and artery imaging tools can predict the risk of cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular death, and stroke. His findings were published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
"This AI can tell someone in 60 seconds or less the level of risk," said Alicja Rudnicka, the lead professor of the study.
If the scan results indicate the risk is higher than expected, the patient may be prescribed a statin or offered another treatment. Still according to the professor of statistical epidemiology at St George's, AI can ultimately improve cardiovascular health.
Circulatory diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, heart failure, and stroke are the leading causes of ill health and death worldwide. Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death globally.
While there are several ways of testing risk, none of them are always accurate. Until finally the researchers developed Quartz--a fully automated AI to test risk factors to predict health and death from blood vessels through the retina.
They used it by scanning 88,052 UK Biobank participants aged 40-69. The researchers looked at the width, area of blood vessels, and the degree of curvature of the arteries and veins in the retina to develop predictive models for stroke, heart attack, and death from circulatory disease.
Then, they applied the model to retinal images of 7,411 participants, ages 48 to 92, from a prospective European investigation of the (Epic)-Norfolk cancer study. Quartz's performance is compared to the widely used Framingham risk score framework.