May 21, 2025
SINGAPORE – A new artificial intelligence (AI) system which will reduce the time required for a cardiac scan analysis and allow for faster diagnosis of coronary artery disease will be available at three public hospitals here as part of a year-long trial.
The Singapore heart lesion analyser (Sense) will be trialled at the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS), the National University Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital in the third quarter of 2025.
A total of 300 patients across the three institutions will be involved in the trial.
Sense will use sophisticated computational capabilities and algorithms to interpret cardiac imaging scans and evaluate the risk of coronary artery disease in under 10 minutes.
This is a process which typically requires two to four hours of analysis by radiographers and cardiologists, said Assistant Professor Lohendran Baskaran, senior consultant with the NHCS cardiology department.
“Sometimes it can take longer because doctors are busy doing other things in between all these scans, such as seeing patients in-clinic,” said Prof Lohendran.
Sense automates this process, analysing CT scans to establish the amount of calcium deposits in the coronary arteries and epicardial adipose tissue – the layer of fat surrounding the heart and major coronary arteries.
It has shown between 85 per cent and 99 per cent accuracy so far, Prof Lohendran said, though he noted these results have been from the use of Sense in a controlled environment.
The year-long trial of Sense at the three institutions will give a better idea of how accurate the system is in real-world settings, he said.
“Ultimately, all of this has to be reviewed, checked and confirmed by the doctor before taking it any further. This will never override a doctor’s position or clinical judgment,” said Prof Lohendran.
Sense is being led by the CardioVascular Systems Imaging and Artificial Intelligence (CVS.AI) research laboratory at NHCS, together with A*Star’s Institute for Infocomm Research.
CVS.AI, whose work began in 2021, uses AI to detect and predict heart disease more quickly and accurately.
Occupying a 164 sq m space at the NHCS building on Hospital Boulevard, the laboratory employs AI-powered machine learning software and high-performance graphics processing units for real-time processing of large datasets, to significantly improve the accuracy of disease prediction models.
This infrastructure will allow CVS.AI to enhance and strengthen its AI algorithms, using the big data collected and analysed, said CVS.AI’s co-director and core technical lead, Associate Professor Zhong Liang.
Sense builds on an earlier project by CVS.AI – the AI-driven national platform for CT coronary angiography for clinical and industrial applications (Apollo).
Apollo aimed to improve the accuracy and speed of interpreting CT scans using AI.
Over four years, it built a database of almost three million images from the CT scans of some 5,000 cardiac patients here, together with comprehensive clinical data.
Sense is supported by SingHealth and A*Star’s Healthcare Translation Partnership, while Apollo received funding from A*Star’s Industry Alignment Fund – Pre-Positioning Programme.
The lab’s work will help improve understanding of coronary artery disease in Singapore, said Prof Lohendran, who is also director and core clinical lead of CVS.AI.
Factors such as the severity of disease and what part of the population is likely to have it are still poorly understood, he added.
Coronary artery disease is responsible for almost a third of the cardiovascular-related deaths in Singapore.
In 2023, 8,311 people here died from cardiovascular disease, accounting for about 30 per cent of all deaths that year.
- Zhaki Abdullah is a correspondent at The Straits Times. He is on the health beat, in addition to occasionally covering science, environmental, tech and Muslim affairs issues.