AI breakthrough in heart disease began at Charlies

A Western Australian researcher and his global team have shown that artificial intelligence (AI) can detect telltale signs of heart disease from low dose bone scans, potentially unlocking a new defence against one of Australia’s leading causes of death.

Edith Cowan University Professor Joshua Lewis began as a research fellow at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in 2009, where he first explored using DEXA bone density scans combined with AI to detect heart disease long before symptoms appear.

The AI algorithm analyses DEXA scans, typically used to assess osteoporosis, to identify calcium build-up in the abdominal aorta, a key early sign of cardiovascular disease that may be detected years before a heart attack.

Currently, detecting calcification is only limited to a specialist review, which can be expensive and time consuming.

Professor Lewis said the results could mean that about 700,000 Australians who have a DEXA bone scan annually could also learn about their heart health using the same machine.

“Heart disease is one of Australia’s biggest killers and what we’ve done in the research has shown we may have found a new way to spot risk earlier,” he said.

“Vascular calcification often starts in the abdominal aorta before blood vessels such as the heart and so if you can detect it earlier, then you can make those changes, whether they be diet or lifestyle or medications, to prevent going on to having a heart attack or stroke.”

For Pippa Luke, finding out she had blood vessel disease changed her life for the better.

“Getting the results was definitely a catalyst for increasing my knowledge and awareness of heart health because otherwise it’s very silent, you don’t know you have anything,” she said.

“It motivated me to reassess my lifestyle and look at changes, which included regular exercise as well as cardio and resistance exercises, also adopting a Mediterranean diet, and getting more regular heart health checks.

“Without the scans, you can go blindly on until the calcification build up is too great and you end up having heart attack or a much longer road back to better health.”

Researchers hope this technology will be available within few years.