The National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) has unveiled SENSE, an artificial intelligence (AI) system designed to revolutionise the detection and prediction of coronary artery disease (CAD). This cutting-edge technology reduces the time required to analyse cardiac scans from two to four hours to mere minutes, significantly enhancing diagnostic efficiency and treatment speed. SENSE will be deployed across major public hospitals by the third quarter of 2025.
SENSE is spearheaded by the NHCS CardioVascular Systems Imaging and Artificial Intelligence (CVS.AI) Research Laboratory, in collaboration with the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research. The initiative builds on the success of the APOLLO project, which developed AI models for CT coronary angiography. SENSE leverages a vast database of three million cardiac images to power its advanced AI modules.
The new AI system will be implemented at NHCS, National University Hospital, and Tan Tock Seng Hospital. It promises a 30-fold increase in efficiency, allowing clinicians to receive results within 10 minutes. This rapid analysis is expected to lead to earlier disease detection and more timely interventions, addressing CAD, which accounts for nearly one-third of cardiovascular-related deaths in Singapore.
Assistant Professor Lohendran Baskaran, Director of CVS.AI, stated, “SENSE represents a major leap forward in both efficiency and diagnostic accuracy.” The initiative is supported by SingHealth and A*STAR’s Healthcare Translation Partnership, marking a significant step towards improved healthcare delivery in Singapore.
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