Comprehensive clinical application analysis of artificial intelligence-enabled electrocardiograms for screening...

Valvular heart disease (VHD) is becoming increasingly important to manage the risk of future complications. Electrocardiographic (ECG) changes may be related to multiple VHDs, and (AI)-enabled ECG has been able to detect some VHDs. We aimed to develop five deep learning models (DLMs) to identify aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation, pulmonary regurgitation, tricuspid regurgitation, and mitral regurgitation.

Between 2010 and 2021, 77,047 patients with echocardiography and 12-lead ECG performed within 7 days were identified from an academic medical center to provide DLM development (122,728 ECGs), and internal validation (7,637 ECGs). Additional 11,800 patients from a community hospital were identified to external validation. The ECGs were classified as with or without moderate-to-severe VHDs according to transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) records, and we also collected the other echocardiographic data and follow-up TTE records to identify new-onset valvular heart diseases.

AI-ECG adjusted for age and sex achieved areas under the curves (AUCs) of >0.84, >0.80, >0.77, >0.83, and >0.81 for detecting aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation, pulmonary regurgitation, tricuspid regurgitation, and mitral regurgitation, respectively. Since predictions of each DLM shared similar components of ECG rhythms, the positive findings of each DLM were highly correlated with other valvular heart diseases. Of note, a total of 37.5-51.7% of false-positive predictions had at least one significant echocardiographic finding, which may lead to a significantly higher risk of future moderate-to-severe VHDs in patients with initially minimal-to-mild VHDs.

AI-ECG may be used as a large-scale screening tool for detecting VHDs and a basis to undergo an echocardiography.