Opportunistic Atrial Fibrillation Screening and Detection In
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9 Review Article Page 1 of 9 Opportunistic atrial fibrillation screening and detection in “self-service health check-up stations”: a brief overview of current technology potential and possibilities Maged N. Kamel Boulos1, Guy Haywood2 1School of Information Management, Sun Yat-sen University, East Campus, Guangzhou 510006, China; 2South West Cardiothoracic Centre and University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, Plymouth, Devon PL6 8DH, UK Contributions: (I) Conception and design: MN Kamel Boulos; (II) Administrative support: MN Kamel Boulos; (III) Provision of study materials or patients: All authors; (IV) Collection and assembly of data: All authors; (V) Data analysis and interpretation: MN Kamel Boulos; (VI) Manuscript writing: All authors; (VII) Final approval of manuscript: All authors. Correspondence to: Maged N. Kamel Boulos. School of Information Management, Sun Yat-sen University, East Campus, Guangzhou 510006, China. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]. Abstract: Up to a fifth of patients who suffer a stroke had undiagnosed atrial fibrillation (AF). About 30% of AF patients are asymptomatic and remain undiagnosed, so there are no obvious (to the patient) forewarnings. Opportunistic screening for AF applied to the above clinical situation can save lives, since the strokes that occur as a result of AF are often large, severely debilitating or fatal. Today, anyone can buy a good, FDA-approved mobile electrocardiogram (ECG) device/smartwatch for AF detection on Amazon for €100–400, but not very many asymptomatic AF patients, particularly older patients, will do so on their own. In this article, we introduce the concept and potential benefits of opportunistic AF screening and detection in a community setting using the latest generation of affordable digital ECG capture and interpretation solutions integrated into easy-to-use “self-service health check-up stations” installed in public spaces, such as supermarkets and pharmacies. A comprehensive trial of the proposed self-service health check-up stations for AF screening is needed to produce more evidence to convince decision makers to fully buy into the idea of a nation-wide screening programme using these kiosks. Keywords: Atrial fibrillation (AF); opportunistic atrial fibrillation screening; electrocardiogram (ECG); self- service health check-up stations; digital health Received: 11 October 2019; Accepted: 30 April 2020; Published: 20 January 2021. doi: 10.21037/mhealth-19-204 View this article at: http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/mhealth-19-204 Background the level of increased risk using the CHA2DS2-VASc (Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age ≥75 years, Atrial fibrillation (AF): a silent killer Diabetes mellitus, Stroke or transient ischaemic attack AF is the commonest pathological arrhythmia in the world (TIA), Vascular disease, Age 65 to 74 years, Sex category] and in population-based studies is found to be present in score and the institution of appropriate treatment to protect around 3% of the world’s population aged over 20 (1). from stroke and thromboembolism. When it is associated with risk factors such as age over 65, One important problem is the fact that up to around one hypertension or diabetes mellitus it confers a significant third of AF may be asymptomatic (2), and it is possible that increase in the risk of stroke (2). All current cardiological this accounts for a large proportion of the 20% of patients guidelines stress the importance of detecting AF, calculating who suffer a stroke without any apparent underlying © mHealth. All rights reserved. mHealth 2021;7:12 | http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/mhealth-19-204 Page 2 of 9 mHealth, 2021 cause. In a recent study, the presence of subclinical atrial An important question that remains under investigation tachyarrhythmia detected by implanted devices (pacemakers is how long a duration of continuous AF has to be present or defibrillators) was associated with a 2.5-fold increase to indicate an increased thromboembolic risk. There in thromboembolic events (3). AF risk/as a risk factor for appears to be some evidence arising from screening for stroke risk rises sharply with age. Strokes as a result of subclinical AF to suggest that episodes lasting hours rather AF are often large/severely debilitating or fatal. Between than minutes may be of greater importance (14). 10% and 40% of AF patients are asymptomatic or remain Opportunistic screening with the Kardia device in undiagnosed depending on the population studied, so populations with limited cardiological access has been tested the patient is often unaware of the risk until a stroke or in rural India, where it was performed by health workers. thromboembolic event occurs; the risk of dementia is In a population of 2,100 adults, 1.6% were found to have also increased by 30% independent of cerebrovascular AF (13). In this study, all Kardia-flagged abnormal (AF or thromboembolic events (4). unclassified) recordings were reviewed by a cardiologist in In recent years, the importance of pulse checks in primary India and verified by a second one in the USA. care has been widely promoted. Programmes designed to The advantage of cardiological (human) scrutiny of increase the prevalence of such checks have proved effective such recordings has been emphasised by a study in the but are not yet widely embraced (5). Furthermore, they are Netherlands in a cardiology out-patient clinic setting, where relatively imprecise, and an electrocardiogram (ECG) will 5,982 Kardia device recordings were reviewed by a “heart always be required for the definitive diagnosis. team” including cardiologists. Of all reviewed recordings, 22% were designated as “possible AF” by the Kardia device algorithm, but one fifth of these were considered not to be Opportunistic AF screening AF by the heart team. A further 17% of the recordings were Since 2011 when AliveCor was founded to commercialise designated “unclassifiable” by the device, but 81% of these the Kardia device (6), a wide range of wearables, ECG recordings were considered to be clearly readable and smartwatches, smartphone accessories and mobile diagnosable by the heart team (15). This issue of the high technologies capable of recording ECGs have come on the rate of unclassified recordings was highlighted in another market. Most of these provide a single lead ECG, though study performed post-direct current (DC) cardioversion in some now produce synthesised multi-lead recordings, e.g., patients with previous AF. In this study, 34% of the Kardia AliveCor KardiaMobile 6L (7). The relatively low cost, traces were considered by the algorithm to be “unclassified”, ease of use and portability of such devices, some of which but cardiologists were able to diagnose AF correctly from were clinically validated and FDA (US Food and Drug the Kardia recording (compared to the 12-lead simultaneous Administration) approved, have raised great interest in ECG) with 100% sensitivity and 80% specificity (16). But opportunistic acquisition of ECGs as a screening tool or the six-lead KardiaMobile 6L (7), with its newer algorithms, as a diagnostic tool at the time of suspected arrhythmic should fare better than the original KardiaMobile that was symptoms. used in the above two studies. Opportunistic screening for AF has been explored in These findings emphasise the advantage of opportunistic primary care and pharmacy settings (8,9). In subjects aged screening when integrated with an appropriate level over 65, the prevalence of AF assessed in such a fashion of cardiological expertise in the interpretation and is consistently between 6% and 7%. The percentage of verification of the classification derived from mobile subjects screened in this manner who are found to have technology algorithms, which might be an important newly diagnosed AF is typically 1.5%, indicating the need factor when considering the cost-effectiveness of this type to screen around 70 people in this age group to detect of opportunistic approach, as the physician time involved one with newly discovered AF (10), and thus making this could be potentially considerable. Nevertheless, ECG trace a cost-effective method of screening (11). As such, the interpretation algorithms are getting better all the time with KardiaMobile device has been favourably reviewed and a negative predictive value for detection of AF (ruling out recommended by the National Institute for Health and AF) approaching 100% (15), and are gradually proving to Care Excellence in the UK (NICE) (12). The value of such be generally reliable and acceptable for screening purposes an approach has also been explored in Canada, India and when used on their own (see later below). Persons with AF Australia among other countries (8,9,13). (or repeatedly inconclusive results) flagged by algorithms © mHealth. All rights reserved. mHealth 2021;7:12 | http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/mhealth-19-204 mHealth, 2021 Page 3 of 9 should in any case be referred to a cardiologist for further has been fully tested, submitted to the FDA and approved, a confirmation and management as appropriate. digital screening programme will be launched that will also deliver patient guidance on next steps after receiving the results of AF screening (24). Meanwhile, it was announced Examples of current mobile ECG solutions for AF in October 2019 that AliveCor and Xiaomi-backed Huami screening and detection (China) will co-develop new medical-grade ECG wearables Here we provide a few of the most common examples and put them on the market by 2020 (25). of mobile clinical-grade ECG solutions on the general The above commercial solutions are powered by consumer market as of 2019, but the ultimate comparative generally reliable proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) clinical reliability, feasibility/acceptability and cost- (including machine learning/deep learning) and non- effectiveness/affordability of the different technologies on AI algorithms for mobile ECG trace interpretation; see, offer today will require further investigations/trials to fully for example, Hannun et al. (26), who describe a similar establish, which is beyond the set scope of this article.