British Heart Foundation (BHF)

Stories

AI detects heart failure and valve disease from a standard ECG in under two seconds

As of September 2026: Funded the AI ECG research

An AI tool built at Imperial College London reads heart failure and heart valve disease from a standard electrocardiogram (ECG), a test in clinical use for a century. In a 67,000-patient US trial, it flagged up to 81 percent of heart failure cases and 90 percent of valve disease cases. Each read takes under two seconds.

Updated Sep 28

New heart attack definition corrects decades of under-diagnosis in women

Rule Changes

As of September 2026: Supported the new definition; funded research by Nicholas Mills

For decades, the blood test for heart attacks used a single threshold for every patient. That threshold caught nearly all men having heart attacks but missed some women, because women naturally carry lower levels of the heart-injury protein troponin. The world's four leading cardiovascular organizations just agreed on the first universal definition of a heart attack, and it corrects that bias.

Updated Sep 10