Portable Measurement Methods Combined With Artificial Intelligence in Detection of Atrial Fibrillation

In Western countries, every sixth person in their lifetime and 15,000 people in Finland have a new stroke each year. About every fourth stroke is based on cardiac embolism. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia that increases the risk of thromboembolic complications, such as stroke. It may cause formation of thrombi in the left atrium with ensuing embolization in the cerebral and peripheral circulation. AF is often asymptomatic and paroxysmal. Thus, the diagnosis of AF is often challenging.

A new onset AF is usually treated with cardioversion (CV), in which the abnormal rhythm is converted back to sinus rhythm (SR). However, a long-lasting AF (>48 hours) is associated with risk of stroke. Therefore, the duration of AF needs to be known before a CV can be performed. This study evaluates the ability of novel customer-targeted heart measuring devices to detect rhythm change and short AF episodes. Moreover, novel biomarkers will be analyzed from the blood samples of AF patients and their suitability to estimate the duration of AF will be evaluated.

The research will be accomplished in cooperation with the Kuopio University Hospital Emergency Department, the Heart Center, the Department of Applied Physics of the University of Eastern Finland and Heart2Save Ltd.

The results of the research project will be published in the scientific journals of medicine and medical technology and will be presented at scientific conferences of the respective fields. The research results of the project can be utilized by all companies in the medical technology industry, in particular companies that produce ECG measuring instruments and companies that produce rhythm recognition software.