COVID-19 fatalities may have captured more attention lately, but heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the U.S. More than 300,000 Americans this year will die of sudden cardiac arrest (also called sudden cardiac death, or SCD), where the heart stops functioning properly.
These events occur suddenly and often without warning, making them nearly impossible to predict. But that may be changing, thanks to 3D imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) technology under study at Johns Hopkins University.
There, researchers are working to develop a way to create more accurate and personalized models of the heart — and not just any heart, your heart, if you're a patient in need.
"Right now, a clinician can only say whether a patient is at risk or not at risk for sudden death," says Dan Popescu, PhD, a Johns Hopkins research scientist and first author of a new study on AI's ability to predict sudden cardiac arrest survival. "With this new technology, you can have much more nuanced predictions of probability of an event over time."
Put another way: By harnessing AI, clinicians may be able to not only predict if a patient is at risk, but also when an event is most likely to occur.
