The influence of AI in medicine continues to grow at pace and is expected to do so for the foreseeable future. Heart surgery is one area of medicine benefitting from artificial intelligence and the latest example of its application is a technology helping cardiologist fit stents with more precision and in less time. It will now be rolled out across the country.
The AI-driven keyhole surgery has been trialled at the Royal Free hospital in London with patients there first to benefit before its introduction at another 20 medical facilities around the country. The AI offers information and advice while a stent, a small stainless steel mesh tube, is being fitted during angioplasty surgery. The result is quicker, more accurate decisions by the surgeon while stents, which are inserted into failing arteries, are being fitted.
The AI tool, developed by U.S. medical device company Abbott, uses ‘near infrared’ light to provide high-definition imagery from inside an artery. It’s the same optical coherence tomography (OCT) as currently used.
However, while OCT imagery previously had to be examined by eye, Abbott’s AI tool analyses it to understand the extent of calcium blockages narrowing it and precise diameter. The more accurate information means the sturgeon is able to fit the stent with greater accuracy than previously possible.
The procedure is also much fast because the AI can return the precise diagnosis within seconds. Specialists take much more time to calculate the exact diameter of stent needed. Their calculations are also based on the less precise measurements they can estimate by eye.
Experts estimate the AI tool will reduce the number of heart attacks, strokes and cases of dementia treated by the NHS by 150,000 over the next ten years. The NHS has made a long-term commitment to patients to more quickly adopt the new technology and treatments coming to market faster than ever as the pace of technological progress quickens. Last month cutting-edge 3D heart-scanning technology that can diagnose potentially fatal coronary heart disease five times faster than previous methods was introduced.
With over 7.6 million people in the UK living with some form of heart and circulatory disease and over 100,000 hospital admissions a year due to heart attacks, the NHS investing in revolutionary technology that can meaningfully lower the need for emergency treatment makes economic sense and well as benefitting patients.
Most heart attacks are a result of coronary heart disease caused by a narrowing of arteries due to the build-up of fatty material along their walls reducing the flow of oxygen to the heart. The disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.
Coronary angioplasty is often used to improve the blood supply to the heart after a heart attack has been suffered but can also be a preventative measure if dangerously narrowed arteries are detected. A stent is used to open the artery up.
Another big benefit of the AI tool, says Dr Sundeep Kalra, a consultant interventional cardiologist who has trialled the technology, is that it “will enable more cardiologists to carry out a procedure which, until now, has been limited to a few specialists”.
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