In the world, no less than 37 million people need to replace mitral heart valves that have become inefficient due to age or other reasons, but only a small percentage of them undergo this procedure. In fact, it involves opening the chest and sternum, and most patients cannot handle such an invasive surgery.
However, the number of people getting new valves may soon increase, thanks to devices that integrate the information provided by echocardiograms with real-time X-rays thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), returning 3D images containing the navigation system in the individual’s heart. This allows the surgeon to perform the operation in a minimally invasive way, and therefore with a catheter.
GPS for the heart
DeviceGuide (this is the name of the instrument) was designed by Philips, which presented these and other results from the integration of AI into medical instruments at its headquarters, the Best campus, near Eindhoven, within an area dedicated to life sciences called BrainPort. DeviceGuide is an example of so-called Image-Guided Therapy, which is the most innovative approach to various types of treatment, where the information generated by imaging systems is processed by AI in real-time to direct the actions of doctors (but not only surgeons) towards the most appropriate decisions for each patient.
Another example is a device that corrects the radiation therapy beam based on CT data, significantly reducing the risk of irradiating healthy tissue, to concentrate maximum power on neoplastic tissue. In the same way, the new CT scan and the new MRI with AI independently process the image, correcting the image, thereby allowing the diagnostic radiation and the duration of the examination to be reduced by up to 80%, which sometimes gives an impressive effect. The new pediatric CT scan with Ai, for example, takes several tens of minutes compared to the time-consuming classic CT scan, and as seen in studies carried out in oncology hospitals, it allows the need for sedation in children to be reduced by almost 90%. Among other things, after each action, AI continues to suggest improvements and corrections, so that each intervention is a small step forward compared to the previous one.
Artificial intelligence is entering the path
Therefore, AI is coming rapidly to modern medicine and companies like Philips, which have been at the forefront of designing advanced medical instruments since the 1970s, know this. And Shez Partovi, Chief Innovation Officer at the Dutch giant which Best employs 3,500 people from 75 countries and with the most diverse skills, believes so, for obvious reasons. In fact, Partovi explains: «All over the world there is a problem of shortage of medical and nursing personnel, which will not be solved soon: it is estimated that by 2030 there will be a shortage of no less than ten million doctors. The decline in the number of births and the increase in average lifespan have a detrimental impact on the health care system, and make access to treatment increasingly difficult. One answer is the introduction of AI, which could radically change the way operators work, and provide huge benefits for everyone. This kind of investment is successful because it provides concrete solutions and revolutionizes the way things work.”
