Diagnostic and Prognostic Models Based on Electrocardiograms for Rapid Clinical Applications

• Published in: Canadian journal of cardiology
• Main Authors: Islam, Md Saiful, Kalmady, Sunil Vasu, Hindle, Abram, Sandhu, Roopinder, Sun, Weijie, Sepehrvand, Nariman, Greiner, Russel, Kaul, Padma
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 09.07.2024
• ISSN: 1916-7075

Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for the analysis of electrocardiograms (ECG) has the potential to transform diagnosis and estimate the prognosis of not only cardiac but, increasingly, non-cardiac conditions. In this review, we summarize clinical studies and AI-enhanced ECG-based clinical applications in the early detection, diagnosis, and estimating prognosis of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in the last five years (2019-2023). With advancements in deep learning and the rapid increased use of ECG technologies, a large number of clinical studies have been published. However, a majority of these studies are single-center, retrospective, proof-of-concept studies that lack external validation. Prospective studies that progress from development toward deployment in clinical settings account for <15% of the studies. Successful implementations of ECG-based AI applications that have received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been developed through commercial collaborations, with about half of them being for mobile or wearable devices. The field is in its early stages, and overcoming several obstacles is essential, such as prospective validation in multi-center large datasets, addressing technical issues, bias, privacy, data security, model generalizability, and global scalability. This review concludes with a discussion of these challenges and potential solutions. By providing a holistic view of the state of AI in ECG analysis, this review aims to set a foundation for future research directions, emphasizing the need for comprehensive, clinically integrated, and globally deployable AI solutions in CVD management.