(Photo : Business Times)

An artificial intelligence (AI) tool named Optimise can help doctors identify people at higher risk of certain complicated health conditions which could increase their chances of dying from heart related issues.

The findings, presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in London, are expected to help patientsat high risk to start preventive treatments early.

Researchers from the University of Leeds in UK used the AI tool to study health records of over two million patients. During the study, the tool identified more than 4,00,000 people at high risk of developing conditions like heart failure, diabetes and stroke which increased their chances of dying from certain heart related complications. During the 10-year- follow-up period, 74 percent of the people involved in the study died of a heart-related condition.

Interestingly, during the study, the AItool helped identify many undiagnosed conditions in many patients very early. Of the 82 patients analyzed by the tool, one in five were detected with kidney disease. Researchers said that without the intervention of Optimise, the condition would have remained undiagnosed.

The AI tool also recommended better medicines for patients suffering from certain conditions like blood pressure, thus lowering their risk of dying from heart related problems later.

Researchers expected the findings to help prevent heart-related deaths.

"A quarter of all deaths in the UK are caused by heart and circulatory diseases and this new and exciting study harnesses the power of ever-evolving AI technology to detect the multitude of conditions that contribute to it," Professor Bryan Williams, Chief Scientific and Medical Officerat the British Heart Foundation,  said in a statement, while Dr Ramesh Nadarajah, a Health Data Research UK fellow at the University of Leeds, added: "Heart-related deaths are often caused by a constellation of factors. This AI uses readily available data to gather new insights that could help healthcare professionals ensure that they are providing timely care for their patients."

While the AI tool Optimise is expected to arrive in the next two years, the team is planning to conduct a larger clinical trial to confirm their findings.