Artificial intelligence, fetal echocardiography, and congenital heart disease

There has been a recent explosion in the use of artificial intelligence (AI), which is now part of our everyday lives. Uptake in medicine has been more limited, although in several fields there have been encouraging results showing excellent performance when AI is used to assist in a well‐defined medical task. Most of this work has been performed using retrospective data, and there have been few clinical trials published using prospective data. This review focuses on the potential uses of AI in the field of fetal cardiology. Ultrasound of the fetal heart is highly specific and sensitive in experienced hands, but despite this there is significant room for improvement in the rates of prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease in most countries. AI may be one way of improving this. Other potential applications in fetal cardiology include the provision of more accurate prognoses for individuals, and automatic quantification of various metrics including cardiac function. However, there are also ethical and governance concerns. These will need to be overcome before AI can be widely accepted in mainstream use. It is likely that a familiarity of the uses, and pitfalls, of AI will soon be mandatory for many healthcare professionals working in fetal cardiology.
Key Points What's already known about this topic? Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming part of everyday life, and interest is growing in its use in improving medical outcomes.AI may be a useful tool in fetal cardiology to improve rates of antenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease, as well as other potential benefits.Potential pitfalls exist however, and future clinicians will likely need to have a thorough understanding of the risks and benefits of AI. What does this study add? This review article summarizes the fundamentals of AI, the potential uses of AI in fetal cardiology, and what the future may hold.