What Else Can AI See in a Digital ECG?

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Medical Informatics
• Artificial Intelligence

Background:

• The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a traditional diagnostic tool for cardiovascular diseases.
• Digitalization, frequent use, and AI processing have renewed the ECG's importance.
• Recent literature highlights AI's role in extracting novel information from ECG data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recent advancements in AI applications for ECG analysis.
• To explore the capabilities of various AI software in interpreting ECG data.
• To assess the potential of AI-enhanced ECGs in clinical practice.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of studies published in the first three months of 2023.
• Analysis of AI software including natural language processing, backpropagation neural networks, and convolutional neural networks.
• Evaluation of AI's performance in predicting patient characteristics and diagnosing cardiac conditions.

Main Results:

• AI enables accurate predictions of patient age and sex from ECGs.
• AI can identify abnormal heart valve structure and atrial electrical activity.
• AI assists in predicting transplant immune response, therapy response, and sudden cardiac death risk.

Conclusions:

• AI significantly enhances the diagnostic power of ECGs.
• AI-powered ECG analysis offers high accuracy, simplicity, low cost, and remote capabilities.
• The integration of AI into ECG interpretation represents a major advancement in cardiovascular diagnostics.