AI can predict heart attack a decade in advance - study

Lynne Cameron/PA Wire

By Sarah Lowden and Storm Newton, PA

Artificial intelligence could predict if a person is at risk of having a heart attack up to 10 years in the future, potentially saving thousands of lives, a study has suggested.

It could also improve treatment for almost half of patients, researchers at the University of Oxford said.

They explored ways to improve the accuracy of cardiac CT scans using AI. According to the British Heart Foundation (BHF), which funded the research, about 350,000 people in the UK have one of these scans each year.

However, it said many patients go on to die of heart attacks in the future due to their failure in picking up small, undetectable narrowings.

Researchers analysed the data of more than 40,000 patients undergoing routine cardiac CT scans at eight UK hospitals, with a median follow-up time of 2.7 years.

They found those whose results showed “significant” narrowing of the arteries were more likely to have a serious heart attack, but twice as many patients with no significant narrowings also went on to have heart attacks, which were sometimes fatal.