#cardiac-diagnostics

#cardiac-diagnostics

"I would like to sincerely apologise to any patients who have been affected and recalled for a scan as I understand receiving such news can be unsettling."

Some 1 million patients in the U.S. live with a type of heart disease called heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or HFpEF, caused by a stiffening of a chamber of the heart that makes it much more challenging to distribute blood throughout the body. The condition has few approved therapies and high mortality rates.

According to a growing body of research, the circumference of your neck could be an indicator of a higher likelihood of serious metabolic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and sleep disorders. Another troubling fact is that even if your body mass index (BMI) index is healthy, just how large your neck is could still be a determining factor in your predisposition to developing these conditions.

EchoPrime, a video-based vision-language model, analyses echocardiogram footage and generates a written report of cardiac form and function. Its findings were published in Nature (volume 650, pages 970-977) in February 2026, under the title 'Comprehensive echocardiogram evaluation with view primed vision language AI.'

Since 1990, the incidence of hypertension has increased globally, with up to one in three adults worldwide affected by it. Most of those people have no idea they have it. If people could diagnose and monitor hypertension at home, the World Health Organization estimates that up to 76 million lives could be saved with easy fixes, like stopping smoking or adjusting diet.

Public health consultant Dr Ross Keat said supporting people earlier to make small preventative changes would make "a big difference later on". Some 3,500 people in the north of the island within that age bracket are eligible for the checks. The checks will be carried out by two pre-existing nurses that support GP staff and would not replace GP appointments, Keat explained, adding that the cost would be minimal and absorbed by Ramsey Group Practice.

As the Magerstadt Professor of Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Khan studies the epidemiology of risk for heart failure. Using population-based cohorts and large electronic health record data analyses, she performs mechanistic studies that may enhance risk prediction and identify novel therapeutic agents for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Khan and her team have developed a tool to predict risk and prevent cardiovascular disease such as heart failure, stroke, arrhythmia, coronary artery disease and many other conditions.

You get sick from staying inside, breathing the same germ-filled air. Open your windows, even for five minutes, to circulate the old air out and let in fresh air. Also, if you're taking your child to the doctor, don't wait to treat their fever because you want 'the provider to see the fever.' Your child might wait two hours to be seen, meanwhile their temperature goes up, and they might have a seizure. If you say they've been having fevers, we believe you.

When people breathe, speak, sing or clear their throats, their bodies are in constant motion. Air flowing through the lungs, the oscillation of vocal folds in the throat and the rhythmic expansion of the chest all produce tiny vibrations that carry valuable information about physiology and health. However, constructing a device that can capture all of these physiological signals has remained a challenge.

He has been living with atrial fibrillation (AF), a common heart rhythm problem, affecting 1.4m people in the UK, that can cause your heart to beat irregularly and often too fast. "It's very debilitating. On my worst day I feel very tired, my heart rate increases rapidly - I could walk for 2 or 3 miles and be okay, I could walk for 100 yards and it would hit me."

AI plays an important role-but not by fixing fragmented data on its own. The work of organizing, connecting, and interpreting healthcare information still belongs to people and the systems they build. Where AI helps is after that foundation is in place: by bringing the right information forward at the right time, reducing the effort it takes to find what matters, and supporting better decisions in the moment of care.

"I heard a pop in my head, like a big bubble," she said. "I tried to scream, but it wasn't a normal scream. I knew something wasn't right."