The National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) is set to pilot a new artificial intelligence (AI) system designed to quickly predict coronary artery disease (CAD). This technology will also be tested at the National University Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Called SENSE (Singapore Heart Lesion Analyser), the system uses machine learning to automatically interpret heart scans and assess the risk of CAD. It analyses four key factors from CT scans: coronary calcium scores, epicardial adipose tissue, coronary stenosis, and plaque buildup. These factors were identified using data from the NHCS’s APOLLO cardiac database.
NHCS said SENSE can deliver reports to doctors in just 10 minutes. This is a significant improvement compared to the usual processing time of two to four hours.
Why It Matters
Coronary artery disease causes nearly one-third of cardiovascular-related deaths in Singapore. NHCS aims to reduce these deaths by using AI to detect and monitor CAD at an earlier stage.
The SENSE project is led by NHCS’s CardioVascular Systems Imaging and Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory (CVS.AI), working in partnership with the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research. Since its establishment in 2021, CVS.AI has expanded its technology resources, including a larger set of GPUs. This allows the lab to process large amounts of data in real time.
SENSE builds on CVS.AI’s APOLLO database, which contains around three million heart images and information from roughly 5,000 patients across major cardiac centres in Singapore.
“SENSE offers high accuracy in predicting CAD. This helps doctors provide timely and effective treatment,” said Lohendran Baskaran, assistant professor and clinical lead of CVS.AI at NHCS.
The AI tool will begin pilot testing at NHCS, the National University Hospital, and Tan Tock Seng Hospital in the third quarter of this year.
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