Credit: Michigan medicine
Screening for a sometimes fatal condition among patients with a rare autoimmune disease could soon - thanks to a computer algorithm - become even more accurate.
Researchers at Michigan Medicine found that an internet application improved their ability to spot pulmonary arterial hypertension in patients with systemic sclerosis, or scleroderma. The unpredictable condition is marked by tightening of the skin that can damage internal organs.
The algorithm, aptly named DETECT, outperformed standard methods used to identify the form of high blood pressure in the lungs that causes the heart to weaken and fail. We ve been advocating for a long time that every scleroderma patient should be screened on an annual basis using DETECT, and this data supports that, says Dinesh Khanna, M.B.B.S., M.Sc., senior author of the study and director of Michigan Medicine s Scleroderma Program. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a leading cause of death for these patients, an