Applications of machine learning to undifferentiated chest pain in the emergency department: A systematic review

Ethical Challenges and Opportunities in Applying Artificial Intelligence to Cardiovascular Medicine

Much anticipation surrounds artificial intelligence's (AI) emergence as a promising tool in health care. It offers potential to revolutionise clinical practice through assistive and autonomous operation. The high prevalence of cardiac disease globally provides an opportunity for AI technology to increase health care efficiency and improve patient outcomes. This article explores the ethical considerations necessary for safe and acceptable implantation of AI within the health care space. We aim to highlight several challenges such as data privacy, consent, sustainability, and cybersecurity. In addition, we outline the future opportunities for AI use in cardiovascular medicine. Overall, we argue that AI deployment demands robust regulation, transparent algorithms, and safeguarding of patient privacy.

Predictors of left atrial appendage thrombus in atrial fibrillation patients undergoing cardioversion

BACKGROUND

Atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter represent the most prevalent clinically significant cardiac arrhythmias. While the CHA2DS2-VASc score is commonly used to inform anticoagulation therapy decisions for patients with these conditions, its predictive power is limited. Therefore, we sought to improve risk prediction for left atrial appendage thrombus (LAAT), a known risk factor for stroke in these patients.

METHODS

We developed and validated an explainable machine learning model using the eXtreme Gradient Boosting algorithm with 5 × 5 nested cross-validation. The primary outcome was to predict the probability of LAAT in patients with atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter who underwent transesophageal echocardiogram prior to cardioversion. Our algorithm used 37 demographic, comorbid, and transthoracic echocardiographic variables.

RESULTS

A total of 795 patients were included in our analysis. LAAT was present in 11.3% of the patients. The average age of patients was 63.3 years and 34.7% were women. Patients with LAAT had significantly lower left ventricular ejection fraction (29.9% vs 43.5%; p < 0.001), lower E' lateral velocity (5.7 cm vs. 7.9 cm; p < 0.001) and higher E/A ratio (2.6 vs 1.8; p = 0.002). Our machine learning model achieved a high AUC of 0.79, with a high specificity of 0.82, and modest sensitivity of 0.57. Left ventricular ejection fraction was the most important variable in predicting LAAT. Patients were split into 10 buckets based on the percentile of their predicted probability of having thrombus. The lower the percentile (e.g., 10%), the lower the probability of having thrombus. Using a cutoff point of 0.16 which includes 10.0% of the patients, we can rule out thrombus with 100% confidence.

CONCLUSION

Using machine learning, we refined the predictive power of predicting LAAT and explained the model. These results show promise in providing better guidance for anticoagulation therapy and cardioversion in AF and AFL patients.

The skåne emergency medicine (SEM) cohort

BACKGROUND

In the European Union alone, more than 100 million people present to the emergency department (ED) each year, and this has increased steadily year-on-year by 2-3%. Better patient management decisions have the potential to reduce ED crowding, the number of diagnostic tests, the use of inpatient beds, and healthcare costs.

METHODS

We have established the Skåne Emergency Medicine (SEM) cohort for developing clinical decision support systems (CDSS) based on artificial intelligence or machine learning as well as traditional statistical methods. The SEM cohort consists of 325 539 unselected unique patients with 630 275 visits from January 1st, 2017 to December 31st, 2018 at eight EDs in the region Skåne in southern Sweden. Data on sociodemographics, previous diseases and current medication are available for each ED patient visit, as well as their chief complaint, test results, disposition and the outcome in the form of subsequent diagnoses, treatments, healthcare costs and mortality within a follow-up period of at least 30 days, and up to 3 years.

DISCUSSION

The SEM cohort provides a platform for CDSS research, and we welcome collaboration. In addition, SEM's large amount of real-world patient data with almost complete short-term follow-up will allow research in epidemiology, patient management, diagnostics, prognostics, ED crowding, resource allocation, and social medicine.

Systematic reviews of machine learning in healthcare: a literature review

INTRODUCTION

The increasing availability of data and computing power has made machine learning (ML) a viable approach to faster, more efficient healthcare delivery.

METHODS

A systematic literature review (SLR) of published SLRs evaluating ML applications in healthcare settings published between1 January 2010 and 27 March 2023 was conducted.

RESULTS

In total 220 SLRs covering 10,462 ML algorithms were reviewed. The main application of AI in medicine related to the clinical prediction and disease prognosis in oncology and neurology with the use of imaging data. Accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity were provided in 56%, 28%, and 25% SLRs respectively. Internal and external validation was reported in 53% and less than 1% of the cases respectively. The most common modeling approach was neural networks (2,454 ML algorithms), followed by support vector machine and random forest/decision trees (1,578 and 1,522 ML algorithms, respectively).

EXPERT OPINION

The review indicated considerable reporting gaps in terms of the ML's performance, both internal and external validation. Greater accessibility to healthcare data for developers can ensure the faster adoption of ML algorithms into clinical practice.

Applications of natural language processing at emergency department triage: A narrative review

INTRODUCTION

Natural language processing (NLP) uses various computational methods to analyse and understand human language, and has been applied to data acquired at Emergency Department (ED) triage to predict various outcomes. The objective of this scoping review is to evaluate how NLP has been applied to data acquired at ED triage, assess if NLP based models outperform humans or current risk stratification techniques when predicting outcomes, and assess if incorporating free-text improve predictive performance of models when compared to predictive models that use only structured data.

METHODS

All English language peer-reviewed research that applied an NLP technique to free-text obtained at ED triage was eligible for inclusion. We excluded studies focusing solely on disease surveillance, and studies that used information obtained after triage. We searched the electronic databases MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Web of Science, and Scopus for medical subject headings and text keywords related to NLP and triage. Databases were last searched on 01/01/2022. Risk of bias in studies was assessed using the Prediction model Risk of Bias Assessment Tool (PROBAST). Due to the high level of heterogeneity between studies and high risk of bias, a metanalysis was not conducted. Instead, a narrative synthesis is provided.

RESULTS

In total, 3730 studies were screened, and 20 studies were included. The population size varied greatly between studies ranging from 1.8 million patients to 598 triage notes. The most common outcomes assessed were prediction of triage score, prediction of admission, and prediction of critical illness. NLP models achieved high accuracy in predicting need for admission, triage score, critical illness, and mapping free-text chief complaints to structured fields. Incorporating both structured data and free-text data improved results when compared to models that used only structured data. However, the majority of studies (80%) were assessed to have a high risk of bias, and only one study reported the deployment of an NLP model into clinical practice.

CONCLUSION

Unstructured free-text triage notes have been used by NLP models to predict clinically relevant outcomes. However, the majority of studies have a high risk of bias, most research is retrospective, and there are few examples of implementation into clinical practice. Future work is needed to prospectively assess if applying NLP to data acquired at ED triage improves ED outcomes when compared to usual clinical practice.

Artificial Intelligence in Cardiology: An Australian Perspective

Significant advances have been made in artificial intelligence technology in recent years. Many health care applications have been investigated to assist clinicians and the technology is close to being integrated into routine clinical practice. The high prevalence of cardiac disease in Australia places overwhelming demands on the existing health care system, challenging its capacity to provide quality patient care. Artificial intelligence has emerged as a promising solution. This discussion paper provides an Australian perspective on the current state of artificial intelligence in cardiology, including the benefits and challenges of implementation. This paper highlights some current artificial intelligence applications in cardiology, while also detailing challenges such as data privacy, ethical considerations, and integration within existing health infrastructures. Overall, this paper aims to provide insights into the potential benefits of artificial intelligence in cardiology, while also acknowledging the barriers that need to be addressed to ensure safe and effective implementation into an Australian health system.

A Systematic Review: Do the Use of Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Artificial Intelligence Improve Patient Outcomes in Acute Myocardial Ischemia Compared to Clinician-Only Approaches?

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) present a significant global health challenge and remain a primary cause of death. Early detection and intervention are crucial for improved outcomes in acute coronary syndrome (ACS), particularly acute myocardial infarction (AMI) cases. Artificial intelligence (AI) can detect heart disease early by analyzing patient information and electrocardiogram (ECG) data, providing invaluable insights into this critical health issue. However, the imbalanced nature of ECG and patient data presents challenges for traditional machine learning (ML) algorithms in performing unbiasedly. Investigators have proposed various data-level and algorithm-level solutions to overcome these challenges. In this study, we used a systematic literature review (SLR) approach to give an overview of the current literature and to highlight the difficulties of utilizing ML, deep learning (DL), and AI algorithms in predicting, diagnosing, and prognosis of heart diseases. We reviewed 181 articles from reputable journals published between 2013 and June 15, 2023, focusing on eight selected papers for in-depth analysis. The analysis considered factors such as heart disease type, algorithms used, applications, and proposed solutions and compared the benefits of algorithms combined with clinicians versus clinicians alone. This systematic review revealed that the current ML-based diagnostic approaches face several open problems and issues when implementing ML, DL, and AI in real-life settings. Although these algorithms show higher sensitivities, specificities, and accuracies in detecting heart disease, we must address the ethical concerns while implementing these models into clinical practice. The transparency of how these algorithms operate remains a challenge. Nevertheless, further exploration and research in ML, DL, and AI are necessary to overcome these challenges and fully harness their potential to improve health outcomes for patients with AMI.

Risk stratification of patients who present with chest pain and have normal troponins using a machine learning model

BACKGROUND

Risk stratification tools exist for patients presenting with chest pain to the emergency room and have achieved the recommended negative predictive value (NPV) of 99%. However, due to low positive predictive value (PPV), current stratification tools result in unwarranted investigations such as serial laboratory tests and cardiac stress tests (CSTs).

AIM

To create a machine learning model (MLM) for risk stratification of chest pain with a better PPV.

METHODS

This retrospective cohort study used de-identified hospital data from January 2016 until November 2021. Inclusion criteria were patients aged > 21 years who presented to the ER, had at least two serum troponins measured, were subsequently admitted to the hospital, and had a CST within 4 d of presentation. Exclusion criteria were elevated troponin value (> 0.05 ng/mL) and missing values for body mass index. The primary outcome was abnormal CST. Demographics, coronary artery disease (CAD) history, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, obesity, and smoking were evaluated as potential risk factors for abnormal CST. Patients were also categorized into a high-risk group (CAD history or more than two risk factors) and a low-risk group (all other patients) for comparison. Bivariate analysis was performed using a χ² test or Fisher’s exact test. Age was compared by t test. Binomial regression (BR), random forest, and XGBoost MLMs were used for prediction. Bootstrapping was used for the internal validation of prediction models. BR was also used for inference. Alpha criterion was set at 0.05 for all statistical tests. R software was used for statistical analysis.

RESULTS

The final cohort of the study included 2328 patients, of which 245 (10.52%) patients had abnormal CST. When adjusted for covariates in the BR model, male sex [risk ratio (RR) = 1.52, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.2-1.94, P < 0.001)], CAD history (RR = 4.46, 95%CI: 3.08-6.72, P < 0.001), and hyperlipidemia (RR = 3.87, 95%CI: 2.12-8.12, P < 0.001) remained statistically significant. Incidence of abnormal CST was 12.2% in the high-risk group and 2.3% in the low-risk group (RR = 5.31, 95%CI: 2.75-10.24, P < 0.001). The XGBoost model had the best PPV of 24.33%, with an NPV of 91.34% for abnormal CST.

CONCLUSION

The XGBoost MLM achieved a PPV of 24.33% for an abnormal CST, which is better than current stratification tools (13.00%-17.50%). This highlights the beneficial potential of MLMs in clinical decision-making.

Prehospital diagnostic algorithm for acute coronary syndrome using machine learning: a prospective observational study

Rapid and precise prehospital recognition of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is key to improving clinical outcomes. The aim of this study was to investigate a predictive power for predicting ACS using the machine learning-based prehospital algorithm. We conducted a multicenter observational prospective study that included 10 participating facilities in an urban area of Japan. The data from consecutive adult patients, identified by emergency medical service personnel with suspected ACS, were analyzed. In this study, we used nested cross-validation to evaluate the predictive performance of the model. The primary outcomes were binary classification models for ACS prediction based on the nine machine learning algorithms. The voting classifier model for ACS using 43 features had the highest area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) (0.861 [95% CI 0.775–0.832]) in the test score. After validating the accuracy of the model using the external cohort, we repeated the analysis with a limited number of selected features. The performance of the algorithms using 17 features remained high AUC (voting classifier, 0.864 [95% CI 0.830–0.898], support vector machine (radial basis function), 0.864 [95% CI 0.829–0.887]) in the test score. We found that the machine learning-based prehospital algorithms showed a high predictive power for predicting ACS.

Explainable AI (XAI) Applied in Machine Learning for Pain Modeling: A Review

Pain is a complex term that describes various sensations that create discomfort in various ways or types inside the human body. Generally, pain has consequences that range from mild to severe in different organs of the body and will depend on the way it is caused, which could be an injury, illness or medical procedures including testing, surgeries or therapies, etc. With recent advances in artificial-intelligence (AI) systems associated in biomedical and healthcare settings, the contiguity of physician, clinician and patient has shortened. AI, however, has more scope to interpret the pain associated in patients with various conditions by using any physiological or behavioral changes. Facial expressions are considered to give much information that relates with emotions and pain, so clinicians consider these changes with high importance for assessing pain. This has been achieved in recent times with different machine-learning and deep-learning models. To accentuate the future scope and importance of AI in medical field, this study reviews the explainable AI (XAI) as increased attention is given to an automatic assessment of pain. This review discusses how these approaches are applied for different pain types.

Predicting major adverse cardiovascular events in acute coronary syndrome: A scoping review of machine learning approaches

BACKGROUND

Acute coronary syndrome is the topmost cause of death worldwide; therefore, it is necessary to predict major adverse cardiovascular events and cardiovascular deaths in patients with acute coronary syndrome to make correct and timely clinical decisions.

OBJECTIVE

The current review aimed to highlight algorithms and important predictor variables through examining those studies which used machine learning algorithms for predicting major adverse cardiovascular events in patients with acute coronary syndrome.

METHODS

In order to predict major adverse cardiovascular events in patients with acute coronary syndrome, the preferred reporting items for scoping reviews guidelines were used. PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, Springer, and IEEE Xplore databases were searched for articles published between 2005 and 2021. The findings of the studies are presented in the form of a narrative synthesis of evidence.

RESULTS

According to the results, 14 (63.64%) studies did not perform external validation and only used registry data. The algorithms used in this study comprised, inter alia, Regression Logistic, Random Forest, Boosting Ensemble, Non-Boosting Ensemble, Decision Trees, and Naive Bayes. Multiple studies (N=20) achieved a high Area under the ROC Curve between 0.8 to 0.99 in predicting mortality and major adverse cardiovascular events. The predictor variables used in these studies were divided into demographic, clinical, and therapeutic features. However, no study reported the integration of machine learning model into clinical practice.

CONCLUSION

Machine learning algorithms rendered acceptable results to predict major adverse cardiovascular events and mortality outcomes in patients with acute coronary syndrome. However, these approaches have never been integrated into clinical practice. Further research is required to develop feasible and effective machine learning prediction models to measure their potentially important implications for optimizing the quality of care in patients with acute coronary syndrome.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning for clinical outcome prediction

AI is a broad concept, grouping initiatives that use a computer to perform tasks that would usually require a human to complete. AI methods are well suited to predict clinical outcomes. In practice, AI methods can be thought of as functions that learn the outcomes accompanying standardized input data to produce accurate outcome predictions when trialed with new data. Current methods for cleaning, creating, accessing, extracting, augmenting, and representing data for training AI clinical prediction models are well defined. The use of AI to predict clinical outcomes is a dynamic and rapidly evolving arena, with new methods and applications emerging. Extraction or accession of electronic health care records and combining these with patient genetic data is an area of present attention, with tremendous potential for future growth. Machine learning approaches, including decision tree methods of Random Forest and XGBoost, and deep learning techniques including deep multi-layer and recurrent neural networks, afford unique capabilities to accurately create predictions from high dimensional, multimodal data. Furthermore, AI methods are increasing our ability to accurately predict clinical outcomes that previously were difficult to model, including time-dependent and multi-class outcomes. Barriers to robust AI-based clinical outcome model deployment include changing AI product development interfaces, the specificity of regulation requirements, and limitations in ensuring model interpretability, generalizability, and adaptability over time.