A major international study has found that artificial intelligence (AI) can now help doctors better understand which patients are most at risk during the most common type of heart attack.
This discovery could lead to more personalized and effective treatment for heart attack patients around the world.
The most common type of heart attack is called non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome, or NSTE-ACS. Right now, doctors use a tool called the GRACE score to estimate how risky a patient’s condition is.
This score helps them decide how soon a patient needs a special procedure called catheter-based treatment, which may include angiography and placing stents in the heart. The GRACE score is used in hospitals around the world and is part of many international medical guidelines.
However, doctors have long known that this scoring system doesn’t always give a complete picture. Every patient is different, and some may need treatment sooner than others, while some may not need it right away at all.
Now, researchers from the University of Zurich have taken a big step forward. In the largest study of its kind, they looked at the health data of over 600,000 patients from 10 different countries. They used AI to analyze this massive amount of data, including information from a major clinical trial known as the VERDICT trial.
Using AI, the researchers trained a model to learn which patients benefited the most from early treatment and which patients didn’t. The results were eye-opening. Some patients clearly did better with early procedures, but others saw little or no benefit.
This means that many patients may have been getting treatments that weren’t necessary, while others who could benefit most may not have been getting help quickly enough.
Florian A. Wenzl, the lead author of the study, said this shows that hospitals might need to rethink how they treat heart attack patients. The new AI-based model, called GRACE 3.0, could lead to a major change in how doctors decide who gets early invasive treatment.
By re-analyzing clinical trial data, GRACE 3.0 was able to identify which patients truly benefit from early procedures. This could help doctors make more informed choices and avoid one-size-fits-all treatment plans.
Dr. Thomas F. Lüscher, a senior researcher in the study, explained that GRACE 3.0 is the most advanced and practical tool developed so far for treating patients with this common type of heart attack. Not only can it predict who is most at risk more accurately, but it can also help guide doctors in deciding the best treatment for each person.
The researchers believe that GRACE 3.0 could change clinical guidelines in the future. It could also help doctors save lives by making better, faster decisions in emergency heart attack situations.
In the future, tools like GRACE 3.0 may be used in everyday hospital care, giving doctors a simple and reliable way to deliver care that is better suited to each patient’s unique condition. This study is a powerful example of how artificial intelligence can be used to improve medicine and bring real benefits to patients.
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The study is published in The Lancet Digital Health.
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