AI outperforms doctors in detecting serious heart defects before birth: study

The booming technology of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help doctors detect fatal heart defects, which in turn will improve newborns’ chances of survival, a new study says. 

Heart defects were detected more quickly and accurately by AI-aided analysis of prenatal ultrasounds than by doctors evaluating the tests on their own, according to findings reported on Thursday at a meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in Denver. 

“AI-based software significantly improved detection of ultrasounds that were suspicious for congenital heart defects not only among OB-GYNs but also among maternal-fetal medicine subspecialists,” said lead researcher Dr Jennifer Lam-Rachlin. 

“This has a tremendous impact in terms of neonatal outcomes and has the potential to change clinical practice,” she added in a news release as quoted by the UPI. 

About 1 in 4 babies born with a heart defect has one serious that requires surgery or other treatment within the baby’s first year of being born, researchers added.

Prenatal ultrasounds can provide an important early warning for such heart defects but these crucial scans, on which the lives of babies are depending, are often analysed by doctors without extensive training. 

“At least half of prenatal ultrasounds in the United States are being looked at by non-specialists, medical professionals — including OB-GYNs — who may not be trained in prenatal ultrasound,” Lam-Rachlin said.

“That accounts for why the ability to detect congenital heart defects is still quite low, even in developed countries like the US,” the researcher added. 

For this study, a group of 14 OB-GYNs and maternal-fetal medicinal specialists randomly picked and reviewed 200 prenatal ultrasounds gathered from 11 hospitals in two countries. 

The doctors ranged in experience from one year on the job to more than three decades and sometimes, they were assisted by AI in their analysis of the scans and sometimes not, researchers conveyed. 

Results revealed that the AI system significantly improved doctors’ ability to detect cases suspicious of congenital heart defects. 

The doctors, with the help of AI, became more confident in detecting heart defects. It also took them less time to determine whether a case was suspicious or not.