Hospital turns to HeartFlow’s AI software to fight heart disease

March 6, 2019

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the second most common cause of death in England and Wales and a condition that afflicts around 2.3 million people in the UK, but diagnosis of the disease is often complex and invasive.

Birmingham City Hospital has found an effective and safer alternative using deep learning software developed by US healthtech HeartFlow.

The Californian company has created a tool that uses deep learning algorithms to analyse cardiac CT scans and build personalised, three-dimensional models of the heart and connected blood vessels that illustrates the impact that blockages will have on blood flow. Physicians then assess the results to decide if enough blood is reaching the heart.

CHD diagnosis typically involves an invasive angiogram, which is used to check the blood vessels by inserting a catheter through an incision in the groin, wrist or arm, and up to the affected artery. A thin wire is then guided down the catheter to deliver a balloon to the affected section of artery, where it’s then inflated to make the blood flow more freely. Dye is then injected to see how the blood flows. Sometimes the doctor will also insert a permanent stent, a wire-mesh tube that keeps the artery open. Common side effects include bleeding or bruising, but there is also a chance of allergic reaction, artery damage, heart attack, stroke or death.

HeartFlow substitutes the angiogram for a CT scan, a cheaper, safer and faster procedure that uses an X-ray machine to creates detailed images of the inside of the body. If the scan shows disease, the data is securely uploaded from the hospital’s system to the cloud and sent to HeartFlow’s headquarters in California, where the software analyses the image. It then creates a digital, color-coded, 3D model of the patient’s blood flow that is sent back to the doctor who uses it to determine the best course of treatment.

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