Heart and artificial intelligence: a world first in Campania
SAN GIUSEPPE VESUVIANO – On September 29, on the occasion of World Heart Day, the NefroCenter Group inaugurated the new Cardiac Catheterization and Interventional Cardiology Department at the Casa di Salute Santa Lucia in San Giuseppe Vesuviano, with two Siemens Healthineers ARTIS genio angiography systems.
An investment with which the Group confirms itself at the forefront across the whole country, and which will have a concrete impact on patients.
The two new rooms make it possible to study the coronary arteries and other blood vessels with great accuracy, identify narrowings and blockages and, when necessary, intervene through minimally invasive percutaneous procedures. In certain clinical conditions, diagnosis and treatment can take place in the same session, shortening the path between detecting the disease and treating it. This is one of the most significant aspects of the project carried out by the NefroCenter Group: bringing to the local area tools capable of dealing with even complex cardiovascular diseases, from coronary artery disease to peripheral arterial disease and structural heart disease, up to electrostimulation and cardiac pacing procedures.
The double installation is a first: the Vesuvius-area facility is the first in Italy and in the world to have installed two ARTIS genio systems at the same time within the same health center. Artificial intelligence, in this case, does not replace the doctor but enhances the doctor’s diagnostic capabilities. The images obtained during examinations and procedures are processed in real time, allowing the interventional cardiologist to see the coronary arteries and vessels with greater precision. This is particularly important for patients and anatomies that are more complex, and it also makes it possible to limit radiation exposure while maintaining high image quality.
“In cardiac catheterization, AI applied to imaging allows us to assess coronary stenoses more accurately, with a lower radiation dose,” explains Professor Ciro Indolfi, head of the Cardiac Catheterization and Interventional Cardiology Department at the Casa di Salute Santa Lucia. This possibility is even more valuable in Campania, Indolfi points out, where mortality from cardiovascular diseases remains above the national average.
The choice to inaugurate the department on World Heart Day also calls attention to prevention. Cardiovascular diseases can develop for years before showing up as acute events. High blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol abnormalities and kidney disease are some of the factors that call for attention and appropriate checkups.
And it is on this relationship between heart, kidneys and metabolism that the NefroCenter Group has built an important part of its healthcare activity over the years. Its long-standing experience in nephrology and dialysis has been progressively joined by diabetology, cardiology, diagnostics and specialist care, with the aim of following the patient from prevention and early diagnosis through to treatment and subsequent follow-up.
The new rooms are a further step forward in the NefroCenter Group’s advanced healthcare model. Not just latest-generation technology, but the possibility of putting innovation, specialist expertise and artificial intelligence at the service of cardiovascular care pathways that are more timely, more precise and ever closer to the patient’s needs.
