A simple non-invasive eye examination may be able to predict the risk of heart attack when combined with other information, according to a study.
The researchers found that combining information about the pattern of blood vessels in the retina with traditional clinical factors allowed them to better identify the risk of attack in participants compared to established models that include only demographic data.
In a summary to be presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Vienna on Monday, they described in detail how they used data from the UK Biobank, which contains medical records and lifestyle records of 500,000 people, to calculate a measure called the fractal dimension.
They then combined it into a model with factors such as age, gender, systolic blood pressure, body mass index and smoking status, studying people in the database who had suffered a heart attack – also known as a myocardial infarction or MI – after the images. the retina was collected.
Anna Villaplana-Velasco, a PhD student at the Usher and Roslin Institutes at the University of Edinburgh and the author of the presentation, said: when compared to established models that include only demographic data. The improvement in our model was even higher if we add a result related to the genetic predisposition to the development of MI.
The researchers said their analysis found that there was a common genetic basis between the fractal dimension and myocardial infarction.
The average age for a heart attack is 60, and they found that their model had achieved its best prognostic performance more than five years before the heart attack. They hope that in the future, a simple retinal examination can provide enough information to identify people at risk.
“Calculating the individualized heart attack risk of those over 50 seems appropriate,” said Villaplana-Velasco. “This would allow doctors to suggest behaviors that can reduce the risk, such as quitting smoking and maintaining normal cholesterol and blood pressure.
Researchers believe that each condition may have a unique profile of retinal variations, and suggest that their findings may be useful in identifying susceptibility to other diseases. Vilaplana-Velasco said they would like to repeat the analysis separately for men and women to see if a gender-specific heart attack model provides a better risk classification.
Prof. Sir Niles Samani, Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “More research is needed to show that this improvement in prognosis is stable. Work will also be needed to understand the feasibility of this approach and to determine how best to incorporate these scans into routine clinical practice. “
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Dr James Weir, a cardiologist, genomic medicine reader at Imperial College London and a researcher at the Medical Research Council, warned that the study had not been reviewed by partners and that the summary contained limited details, but added: “It is well known that the retina provides a unique opportunity for direct visualization of vessels and assessment of vascular health. Approaches such as those that use computer vision and / or machine learning to detect fine vascular characteristics that predict future heart health seem promising. “
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