Sunday 29 September is World Heart Day, a vital and worldwide initiative dedicated to raising awareness of cardiovascular health. Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of mortality worldwide. A good reason to give extra thought to the importance of research in improving cardiovascular health. That is why we will highlight some of the important research projects from Amsterdam Cardiovascular Sciences (ACS) during this week. Today, we are proud to highlight the first project: VASCUL-AID.

European collaboration on predicting cardiovascular disease 

VASCUL-AID is a collaboration between 13 partners in Europe, supported by the EU (Horizon Europe) and lead by ACS researcher dr. Kak Khee Yeung. The focus of the project is on the prediction of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients, specifically with aortic aneurysms or peripheral arterial disease. This also includes the prediction of earlier intervention or of no need for surgery in these patients. The project involves new techniques such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the use of big data. Together, the partners are building an infrastructure to ethically and legally collect structured data to make good predictions.

The basis of a prospective study

After their start last year, the project has managed to create a database filled with 11000 patients. Also, preparations have been made to start the prospective study in January 2025, when the first of 1100 patients will be included in 6 centers in Europe, with the goal to optimize AI algorithms for prediction. Amongst these preparations has been the readying of the data infrastructure and building of the app and data platform to reliably capture data from patients. In addition to these technical developments, the project has also considered ethical use of data and AI to conduct  reliable AI studies in the clinic. These ethical considerations have been presented to the EU.

Targeted treatment to improve quality of life and prolong lives 

The project is conducted in close consultation with doctors and patients to ensure that the AI tools will actually be used in the clinic. For high-risk patients, which are patients who have been predicted to suffer from CVD, this could have a great impact. When the prediction of CVD in high-risk patients can be combined with targeted treatment, the expectation is that it will lead to a higher quality of life and a prolongation of life for these patients.  

More information can be found on the website of the VASCUL-AID project. The project is open to collaboration (including collecting existing datasets). Contact information can be found on the website.  

During this week’s annual meeting of the European Society for Vascular Surgery (ESVS) several studies on the project will be presented. Click here for information on the annual meeting and the program.