Predicting Pulmonary Hypertension by Electrocardiograms Using Machine Learning
This work addresses the challenge of early PH detection for at-risk patients using a more accessible tool, but it is incremental as it builds on existing machine learning approaches for medical diagnosis.
The paper tackled the problem of early detection of pulmonary hypertension (PH) by developing a neural network model that processes ECG signals to detect PH with 98% accuracy on the training sample, aiming to improve screening compared to current methods like echocardiography.
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a condition of high blood pressure that affects the arteries in the lungs and the right side of the heart (Mayo Clinic, 2017). A mean pulmonary artery pressure greater than 25 mmHg is defined as Pulmonary hypertension. The estimated 5-year survival rate from the time of diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension is only 57% without therapy and patients with right heart failure only survive for approximately 1 year without treatment (Benza et al., 2012). Given the indolent nature of the disease, early detection of PH remains a challenge leading to delays in therapy. Echocardiography is currently used as a screening tool for diagnosing PH. However, electrocardiography (ECG), a more accessible, simple to use, and cost-effective tool compared to echocardiography, is less studied and explored for screening at-risk patients for PH. The goal of this project is to create a neural network model which can process an ECG signal and detect the presence of PH with a confidence probability. I created a dense neural network (DNN) model that has an accuracy of 98% over the available training sample. For future steps, the current model will be updated with a model suited for time-series data. To balance the dataset with proper training samples, I will generate additional data using data augmentation techniques. Through early and accurate detection of conditions such as PH, we widen the spectrum of innovation in detecting chronic life-threatening health conditions and reduce associated mortality and morbidity.