New EKG Screening Program Identifies People at Risk for Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

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.”

According to Dr. Elgin, no standard screening process exists for HCM; the disease is most often identified though a primary care visit EKG or physical exam (detection of a heart murmur in people who have the obstructive type). Given its potential risks, Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute implemented the program in which an AI platform  identifies findings consistent with HCM in network-acquired EKGs.

The EKG-based AI platform for HCM identification is one of several that Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute cardiologists are utilizing for better patient care. They also employ AI in the cardiac catheterization lab to evaluate coronary flow and measure the severity of obstructions, and for early identification of pulmonary embolism, “allowing us to identify high-risk patients that may benefit from more aggressive therapies prior to them decompensating,” Dr. Elgin explains.