Imagine if you could hold a stethoscope to your heart and find out with almost 90 percent accuracy if you were developing heart disease. Ph.D. student Valentina Dargam is working on a method to do just that.
Heart valves, like vocal cords, often make different noises based on how healthy they are. Dargam is trying to measure these signs of sickness in heart sounds.
Dargam is working on an algorithm that can differentiate the sounds of a healthy heart and one that is developing disease with high accuracy. She is currently testing the algorithm on mice and finding proof that it works, she says.
“The idea is that if you have a digital stethoscope and know where to place it, then detecting heart disease can come down to an algorithm,” Dargam says. “A good sound recording would be all a person needs.”
Read more at FIU News.