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Domain: mrc.ac.uk
Stories and comments across the archive that link to mrc.ac.uk.
Stories · 4
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AI Can Predict When Patients Will Die From Heart Failure 'With 80% Accuracy' (ibtimes.co.uk)
New submitter drunkdrone quotes a report from International Business Times: Scientists say they have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) program that is capable of predicting when patients with a serious heart disorder will die with an 80% accuracy rate. Researchers from the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) believe the software will allow doctors to better treat patients with pulmonary hypertension by determining how aggressive their treatment needs to be. The researchers' program assessed the outlook of 250 patients based on blood test results and MRI scans of their hearts. It then used the data to create a virtual 3D heart of each patient which, combined with the health records of "hundreds" of previous patients, allowed it to learn which characteristics indicated fatal heart failure within five years. The LMS scientists claim that the software was able to accurately predict patients who would still be alive after a year around 80% of the time. The computer was able to analyze patients "in seconds," promising to dramatically reduce the time it takes doctors to identify the most at-risk individuals and ensure they "give the right treatment to the right patients, at the right time." Dr Declan O'Regan, one the lead researchers from LMS, said: "This is the first time computers have interpreted heart scans to accurately predict how long patients will live. It could transform the way doctors treat heart patients. The researchers now hope to field-test the technology in hospitals in London in order to verify the data obtained from their trials, which have been published in the medical journal Radiology. -
Rare "Healthy" Smokers Lungs Explained
Bruce66423 writes: New research suggests that a portion of the population suffers few problems from smoking because their genes enable the smoke's effects to be overcome. The Medical Research Council reports: "The new findings, which used the first analyses of genetic data from participants in UK Biobank, may one day help scientists develop better treatments for diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a collection of life-threatening lung disorders affecting almost one million people in the UK. The findings could also help improve interventions aimed at helping smokers to give up." -
Scientists Determine Structure of 1918 Flu Virus
Elusive_Cure writes "NIMR scientists have solved an 85-year old riddle by determining the structure of the flu virus which jumped from birds to humans in 1918 killing more than 20 million people worldwide. This is the same virus that took more lives than World War I and became the largest and deadliest influenza outbreak in recorded history." -
Fugu May Be Key To Human Genome
sulli writes ; "If it doesn't kill you first, it may get you a Nobel Prize. The fugu (puffer fish), best known for being a delicacy in Japan despite being poisonous if improperly prepared, has a very short genome (400M base pairs) compared to that of humans (3.5B base pairs). Says a sushi fan at DOE: "[W]henever researchers have gone into the fugu and looked for human genes, by and large they've found them." Info from a related project in the UK is here."
