
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a genetic disease that causes thickening of the heart muscle, results in symptoms like shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, dizziness, fainting, or even development of congestive heart failure or sudden cardiac death. In other cases, HCM reveals no symptoms at all, explains Eric Elgin, MD, Chief, Division of Cardiology with Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute.
Dr. Elgin and his team implemented an AI-enabled screening-based disease identification program for HCM in August.
“We can now actually look at the EKGs [electrocardiograms] being done in our network, and based on algorithms that are built into this AI platform, it will identify patients who are likely to have HCM,” says Dr. Elgin, noting that they are then contacted about undergoing patient evaluations at Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute. The program is screening more than 100 EKGs a day.
“The AI platform interprets nuances within the EKG that even most cardiologists can’t appreciate,” Dr. Elgin explains. “This is a tool that gives us extra information to identify at-risk patients.”