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Smart Program to Predict Heart’s Final Beat | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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A surgeon (R) and an assistant surgeon operate on a patient a patient during an open-heart surgery in a cardiac surgery unit at the CHU Angers teaching hospital in Angers, western France, on October 24, 2013. AFP PHOTO / JEAN-SEBASTIEN EVRARD


London- Smart intelligence can now predict when patients with a heart disorder will die. Using blood tests and scans of heart beats, the program can reach indications on the heart function and age.

According to the research team from the Medical Research Council in Britain, this technology may save many patients by determining those who need stronger treatment among them.

The study was published in the British Journal of Radiology.

According to BBC, researchers from the council said that they studied cases of people who have suffered from pulmonary hypertension.

Hypertension in lungs harms the heart, and one-third of the patients suffering from this type of hypertension die within five years after their case’s diagnosis.

Hypertension is usually treated with medicines and injections given directly in the blood vessels. But doctors were never able to determine their patients’ age longevity to choose the right treatment.

The researchers have provided the smart intelligence program with Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 265 patients along with the results of their blood tests.

They said the program measured the movement of 30,000 different points in the organ’s structure during each heartbeat. When this data was combined with eight years of patient health records, the artificial intelligence learned which abnormalities predicted when patients would die.

The software could look about five years into the future.

It correctly predicted those who would still be alive after one year about 80% of the time. The figure for doctors is 60%.

Dr. Declan O’Regan, one of the researchers, told the BBC News website: “The AI really allows you to tailor the individual treatment.

“So it takes the results of dozens of different tests including imaging, to predict what’s going to happen to individual patients very accurately.

“So we can tailor getting absolutely the right intensive treatment to those who will benefit the most.”