Singapore to trial AI system for faster heart disease diagnosis in public hospitals

SINGAPORE, May 21 (Xinhua) -- The National Heart Center Singapore (NHCS) will pilot an artificial intelligence (AI) system across three public hospitals, aimed at significantly reducing the time required for cardiac scan analysis and enabling faster diagnosis of coronary artery disease.

With the AI system, the interpretation of cardiac imaging scans and assessment of coronary artery disease risk will take less than 10 minutes, a process that currently takes two to four hours by radiographers and cardiologists, Lohendran Baskaran, a senior consultant at NHCS, told media on Tuesday.

In controlled settings, the AI has demonstrated an accuracy range of 85 to 99 percent, he said, noting that the upcoming year-long trial will assess how well the system performs in real-world clinical environments.

Named the Singapore heart lesion analyzer, the system is scheduled to begin trials in the third quarter of 2025.

Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of cardiovascular-related deaths in Singapore. In 2023, 8,311 people in the country died from cardiovascular disease, making up nearly 30 percent of all deaths that year, according to local media. Enditem