Aortic Valve Stenosis, Artifical Intelligence
Conditions
Brief summary
Heart valve diseases are among the most serious cardiovascular conditions in older age. One of the most common forms is aortic valve stenosis, a narrowing of the valve opening between the left ventricle and the main artery. As the valve becomes tighter, the heart must work harder and harder to pump blood through the body. This process often develops slowly over many years and initially causes no clear symptoms. As a result, the condition is frequently detected only in advanced stages, when warning signs such as shortness of breath, chest pain, or dizziness appear. Without treatment, aortic valve stenosis can become life-threatening. If detected early, however, very effective treatment options are available today. Up to now, the disease has been reliably diagnosed mainly through echocardiography. Yet this method is complex, costly, and requires specialized medical staff. A simple, affordable, and broadly accessible screening option does not yet exist. The interdisciplinary clinical research project explores whether conventional smartphones could fill this gap. Almost all modern devices are equipped with sensors such as microphones, accelerometers, and gyroscopes. These can capture both heart sounds and subtle vibrations of the chest. The research team is investigating whether reliable diagnostic information for the diagnosis of aortic valve stenosis can be extracted from such recordings. To achieve this, the signals are processed with newly developed methods and analyzed using artificial intelligence. For the study, several hundred patients with and without valve disease will be examined. The smartphone results will be compared with established diagnostic standards, particularly echocardiography, to test accuracy and reliability. If successful, the approach could enable a straightforward, digital heart check at home using nothing more than a conventional smartphone. Such a tool would provide an accessible, low-cost, and widely available method for early detection, helping more people receive timely and potentially life-saving treatment.
Interventions
DIAGNOSTIC_TESTSmartphone-based signal acquisition
To enable the study, we have already developed a pipeline from smartphone-based signal acquisition to secure signal upload. This will be followed by analysis of the microphone, accelerometer and gyroscope data and development of algorithms based on to-be-defined signal features.
Sponsors
Medical University Innsbruck
Study design
Observational model
COHORT
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
The following inclusion and
Exclusion criteria
will be used for training, validation and test sets: Inclusion criteria for group I (moderate to severe AS): * Moderate to severe AS defined as AVA ≤ 1.5cm² in echocardiographic assessment * No other significant VHD, valvular prosthesis, pacemaker or congenital heart defect * Documented echocardiography as part of routine clinical practice no older than 90 days * Patient age ≥ 18 years * Provided written informed consent Inclusion criteria for group II: * No significant VHD, valvular prosthesis, pacemaker or congenital heart defect * Documented echocardiography as part of routine clinical practice no older than 90 days * Patient age ≥ 18 years * Provided written informed consent
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Sensitivity and specificity of a smartphone-derived algorithm for detecting moderate-to-severe aortic stenosis (AVA ≤ 1.5 cm²), using echocardiography as the reference standard | At the baseline study visit (after completion of smartphone and echocardiographic assessments) | Sensitivity and specificity will be calculated by comparing the classification produced by the smartphone-based algorithm with the diagnosis obtained from transthoracic echocardiography, which serves as the clinical reference standard. Aortic stenosis severity will be defined according to established guideline criteria, with moderate-to-severe aortic stenosis classified as an aortic valve area (AVA) of ≤ 1.5 cm². Smartphone recordings will be obtained during a single study visit using built-in microphones and motion sensors to capture heart sounds and chest wall vibrations. Echocardiographic measurements, performed by certified clinical personnel, will provide the comparator classification. The reported outcome will reflect how accurately the smartphone algorithm identifies participants with moderate-to-severe aortic stenosis at this time point. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Quality of smartphone-acquired cardiac signals, measured by signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) | At the baseline study visit | Signal quality will be quantified by calculating the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of heart sound and vibration recordings captured using built-in smartphone microphones and motion sensors during the study visit. Higher SNR values indicate clearer cardiac signals with less background noise. The reported outcome reflects the feasibility and technical performance of the smartphone recording pipeline. |
| Agreement between smartphone-derived aortic stenosis classification and echocardiographic grading, measured by Cohen's kappa coefficient | At the baseline study visit | Agreement between the severity classification produced by the smartphone-based algorithm and the clinical reference standard (echocardiographic grading of aortic stenosis) will be quantified using Cohen's kappa coefficient. Echocardiographic classification will follow guideline-based severity thresholds. The reported value reflects the degree of concordance between both methods beyond chance. |
| Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of the smartphone-based algorithm for detecting moderate-to-severe aortic stenosis | At the baseline study visit | The AUROC will be calculated to assess the discriminatory ability of the smartphone-based algorithm to distinguish between participants with and without moderate-to-severe aortic stenosis, as defined by an aortic valve area (AVA) ≤ 1.5 cm² on echocardiography. Higher AUROC values indicate better diagnostic performance. |
| Incidence of major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) | Up to 12 months after the baseline study visit | Major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE)-including all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, non-fatal myocardial infarction, non-fatal stroke, and hospitalization for heart failure-will be recorded during follow-up. The clinical event data will be analyzed in relation to cardiac signal characteristics extracted from the baseline smartphone recordings (e.g., murmur intensity, dominant frequency patterns, signal-to-noise ratio). This outcome explores whether smartphone-derived cardiac features are associated with subsequent adverse clinical events. |
Countries
Austria
Contacts
CONTACTMichael Schreinlechner, MD
Outcome results
None listed