Using Computers To Assess The Heart

This wasn't supposed to happen.

In a Silicon Valley conference room I'm being told by a team of cutting-edge computer profilers that I have a 28 percent chance of having a heart attack by 2017, with my chances getting worse each year between now and then. By 2027, my risk jumps to 70 percent.

This compares with my internist's prognosis that my heart attack risk is a mere 4 percent in 10 years, a number he got during a routine checkup by matching up my cholesterol levels, age, and other factors to a scale considered state-of-the-art by most physicians.

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When the profilers at Entelos, a computer bio-modeling company, agreed to test me on their advanced algorithm for predicting heart attack, they assumed my results would match up with my internist's findings.

They didn't, which suggests that the traditional assessment missed critical factors caught by the Entelos model—a still-experimental test that the company is developing to sell as a consumer product as early as next year for patients who might be at risk for heart attack.

To create my profile, Entelos ran a series of detailed blood tests assessing everything from lipids and triglycerides to the particle size of my good and bad cholesterol (large, medium, small). I had a CT scan taken of my heart, and an ultrasound of my carotid artery in my neck, which can show a plaque buildup similar to what might be accumulating in a person's heart.

In addition, the modelers plugged in previous results from DNA tests that in some cases reveal a higher-than-normal genetic risk factor for heart attack. (See column: "I'm Doomed. Or Not.")

In the conference room, Entelos' chief innovation officer, Thomas Paterson, is looking a bit sheepish having to deliver my results. Paterson is a computer scientist who co-founded Entelos after working for defense contractors to design, among other things, nuclear-attack scenarios for President Ronald Reagan's aborted Star Wars defense system.

My data shows up as a bright yellow line on a black chart plotting my heart's potential demise. For the next five years, I'm okay, reports the chart, with a nearly zero percent risk, then bam! The line swings up—and up.

There is good news too. The yellow line assumes that I will have a normal weight gain of one pound a year for a man over 40. If I keep a stable weight, my risk factor will be closer to my internist's score, at about 4 percent, a predictive line on the chart that is colored green.

If I really want to reduce my risk, the chart also shows me that taking cholesterol-lowering statins would push my risk score to zero.

The message here: If I gain weight, I have a higher-than-average risk of one day clutching my chest and writhing on the floor, and possibly dying.