Young Brno scientist wins international award for early detection of heart failure
The human heart can show signs of trouble long before heart failure develops. A scientist in Brno is researching how routine ECG tests could help doctors detect these warning signs. Her work has won first prize in an international competition for young cardiovascular researchers.
Zuzana Koščová was born in eastern Slovakia but chose to pursue her scientific career in Brno, at the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the Czech Academy of Sciences. She is studying how routine ECG tests, which record the heart’s electrical activity, could help doctors spot early warning signs of heart failure.
Her research group leader, Filip Plešinger, explains the aim of the project.
“The aim is to identify a deterioration in people who already have heart failure. Our research focuses on estimating whether their condition is likely to worsen, or whether heart failure might develop in people who do not have it yet.”
The team also uses high-frequency ECG to examine how the heart's two lower chambers, known as ventricles, work together. Koščová explains why this matters.
“In patients with heart failure, the ventricles are often out of sync. That means one starts contracting earlier than the other.”
Koščová won first prize at the Rosanna Degani Young Investigator Award, an international competition for young cardiovascular researchers, held in Madrid this year.
Her method looks at how a patient's ECG changes over time, rather than relying on a single measurement. The team then uses a form of artificial intelligence known as a neural network to analyse the data.
“We use what is known as longitudinal analysis. A patient may visit a cardiologist several times over a certain period, be hospitalised after a heart attack, or see their GP. Their ECGs are recorded and, ideally, stored in a database.
“We can extract the ECG data and look at how a patient's condition develops over time, whether there are signs of deterioration, and what trends emerge in the ECG and in digital biomarkers.”
The method is still being researched, but it could eventually help doctors identify people at risk and take steps to prevent heart failure, says Plešinger.
“If GPs had such a tool and it showed that I had a higher risk of heart failure within the next five years, and I, as a patient, chose to take that information on board and follow my doctor's advice, I can imagine it having a very positive effect on the population as a whole.”
Early detection is becoming increasingly important as the population ages and more people are at risk of developing heart failure, says Koščová.
“Around 64 million people worldwide live with heart failure, placing a considerable burden on healthcare systems. That is why we want to predict heart failure before it develops, so that preventive measures can be taken.”
The research group has previously developed a highly sensitive ECG that can detect changes missed by conventional devices. Koščová’s research has a different advantage: it uses data from repeated measurements with standard ECG equipment, which is already available to GPs.
