Routine mammograms originally designed to screen for breast cancer can be utilized to identify heart disease in women, according to findings discussed by researchers. Cardiovascular disease is the leading and frequently underdiagnosed cause of death in women globally, amounting to approximately 9 million deaths annually, or roughly one third of all deaths in women. For decades, the condition has often been misdiagnosed or undetected until late stages, partly due to the persistent misconception that it is primarily a men’s disease, leaving women disproportionally unaware, unheard, underdiagnosed, undertreated, and underrepresented in clinical research.
Routine Mammograms Linked to Heart Disease Identification Using AI
By analyzing X-ray mammogram scans with artificial intelligence, researchers measured calcium buildup in breast blood vessels—known as breast arterial calcification, or BAC—which appears as fine bright white lines or clusters on imaging. Previously, physicians and radiologists thought this buildup was not associated with cardiovascular disease, but more recent research shows that the presence of calcium deposits in breast blood vessels indicates a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular complications as women age.
Studies Demonstrate AI Reliability Across International Health Systems
Researchers across different institutions have evaluated machine-learning models on large cohorts of mammogram screenings:
- Doctors in Israel examined 97,364 scans from 29,921 women with an average age of 54, finding via medical records that 16% had high blood pressure, 2.5% had coronary heart disease, and 2.5% had experienced a stroke, according to data presented at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual congress in Munich by Dr Viana Copeland from Tel Aviv University, as detailed by The Guardian.
- The AI model was able to reliably identify women who had suffered a stroke based solely on their mammogram 86% of the time, and achieved 79% and 78% reliability for high blood pressure and coronary heart disease, respectively.
- In another large study covering multiple races across two major U.S. health systems published in the European Heart Journal, researchers analyzed 123,762 women aged 40 to 79 years, grouping them by the area of calcium in breast arteries measured in mm² as reported by Insideprecisionmedicine.
- Lead author Hari Trivedi, MD, an associate professor and researcher at Emory University, stated:
We found that the more calcium visible in the breast arteries on a mammogram, the higher a woman’s risk of a serious heart event such as a heart attack, stroke or heart failure.
Assessing Cardiovascular Risk Without Extra Clinical Data
U.S. researchers followed participants for approximately seven years and found that compared with women with no BAC, those with mild BAC (0–10 mm²) had about a 30% higher risk of serious cardiovascular events, those with moderate BAC (10–25 mm²) had about an 80% higher risk, and those in the severe BAC group (over 25 mm²) had roughly three times the risk. These findings held true even in younger women under 50 and remained significant after correcting for traditional risk factors like diabetes, smoking, and the PREVENT score.
Similarly, a model designed and validated using routine mammograms from over 49,000 women in metropolitan and rural areas of Victoria, Australia, linked to individual hospital and death records, performed just as well as traditional models without requiring extensive clinical and medical data such as blood pressure and cholesterol, according to Associate Professor Clare Arnott, Global Director of the Cardiovascular Program at The George Institute, as noted by Healthcare In Europe.
