Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a wide range of applications that include robotics, medical diagnosis, remote sensing, and electronic trading platforms. The ElliQ Robot by Intuition Robotics uses AI for early responses from patients at home, helping timely mediation and reducing emergency hospital admissions. In 2018, nearly 300,000 cases of ovarian cancer were diagnosed. To map the risks of ovarian cancer in women globally, the world’s first AI study by the University of South Australia is in progress. Not just in medicine, but the British Army used AI for the first time as a part of Operation Cabrit in Estonia.
Pericardial adipose tissue (PAT) and adventitia of the coronary arteries are connected to conditions like atrial fibrillation, diabetes, and coronary artery disease. Cardiac computed tomography (CCT) PAT and cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) are quantifications already established. But Dr. Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, lead researcher from William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary’s, says that manual methods to measure fat accumulation around the heart are challenging, unethical because of radiation, and a tedious process to follow.
Hence she says, they have invented an Artificial Intelligence tool that automatically measures fat during a regular heart MRI in just three seconds. The measure of fat in a person’s body indicates the risk level of various diseases. Body Mass Index (BMI) reveals only the accumulation of fat under the skin, not around internal organs, a drawback.
The team of researchers from Queen Mary’s tested the capability of the AI algorithm. The tests used MRI scans of more than 45000 people with the AI tool to interpret the images that included patient’s health information from the UK Biobank(UKB) database. AI gave the participants accurate information about the fat around the heart and calculated risk of diabetes. With its inbuilt methods of calculations, the AI tool rechecks its results.
Statistics show that diabetes rose from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. Diabetes causes heart attacks, kidney failures, blindness, stroke, and lower limb amputation. This research using the AI tool highlights the possibility of cross-disciplinary collaborations in the medical field, particularly within cardiovascular imaging.
With this AI tool, future researchers will discover new connections between fat around the heart, the risk of the disease, and its use as a standard procedure in hospitals for required patients.
