Background: Artificial neural networks apply non-linear statistics to pattern recognition problems. One such problem is acute myocardial infarction (AMI), a diagnosis which, in a patient presenting as an emergency, can be difficult to confirm. We report here a prospective comparison of the diagnostic accuracy of a network and that of physicians, on the same patients with suspected AMI.
Methods: Emergency department physicians who evaluated 1070 patients 18 years or older presenting to the emergency department of a teaching hospital in California, USA with anterior chest pain indicated whether they thought these patients had sustained a myocardial infarction. The network analysed the patient data collected by the physicians during their evaluations and also generated a diagnosis.
Findings: The physicians had a diagnostic sensitivity and specificity for myocardial infarction of 73.3% (95% confidence interval 63.3-83.3%) and 81.1% (78.7-83.5%), respectively, while the network had a diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of 96.0% (91.2-100%) and 96.0% (94.8-97.2%), respectively. Only 7% of patients had had an AMI, a low frequency but typical for anterior chest pain.
Interpretation: The application of non-linear neural computational analysis via an artificial neural network to the clinical diagnosis of myocardial infarction appears to have significant potential.