Every year, nearly 14 million people rush to hospitals complaining of chest pain, fearing a heart attack. Yet, for many, standard tests fail to reveal the real problem. A lesser-known condition called Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction (CMVD), which affects the heart’s tiniest blood vessels, often goes undetected due to the need for advanced imaging.
Advanced methods like PET myocardial perfusion imaging are mostly expensive and performed only when CMVD is suspected. According to Medical Xpress, Venkatesh L. Murthy, a cardiology professor, said the AI model can help clinicians “accurately identify” CMVD, which is “notoriously hard to diagnose and often missed in emergency department visits.”
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Researchers at the University of Michigan have trained an AI model capable of detecting coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMVD), a condition that affects the smaller blood vessels in the heart, according to Medical Xpress. Doctors believe this engineering advancement could help diagnose CMVD more efficiently and accurately, addressing a challenge that has long made this condition difficult to detect.
How AI identifies CMVD
Murthy explained to Medical Xpress that researchers taught the AI model “to understand the electrical language of the heart without human supervision.” It was trained to process advanced PET data with 12 different demographic and clinical prediction tasks, allowing it to detect subtle signs of CMVD that traditional methods often miss.
Cost-effective- EKGAI Model
Traditional coronary imaging tests often fail to detect CMVD. As Sascha N. Goonewardena, associate professor of internal medicine-cardiology at U-M Medical School, told Medical Xpress, “People who come to the ER for chest pain might have CMVD, but their angiogram will show up as ‘clear.’” The EKG-AI model provides a noninvasive, easy, and cost-effective alternative. It makes diagnosis more efficient and convenient for patients, while hospitals with limited resources can benefit from its ability to predict myocardial flow reserve without expensive imaging equipment.
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About CMVD and its symptoms
CMVD affects the tiny arteries that supply oxygen to the heart. The disease can damage blood vessels and cause spasms, reducing blood flow and leading to persistent chest pain called angina, which lasts for a minimum of 10 minutes. Early detection is crucial to reducing the risk of heart attacks.
