From San Francisco to Amsterdam to Australia, heart health researchers are benefiting from the medical features of the Apple Watch.
With its Investigator Support Program and the launch of ResearchKit in 2015 and CareKit in 2016, Apple is shining a spotlight on the work of heart researchers around the world. In Melbourne, Australia, for example, Associate Professor Rachel Conyers and Dr. Claudia Toro, senior pediatric oncologists, are studying how treatment can affect heart rhythm. Dr. Conyers said in a statement:
I read about the Apple Heart Study and thought this might be important for pediatrics. We used to think that cardiac toxicity only occurred 10 years after treatment. But now we know that new cancer therapies (such as specific inhibitors or immunotherapies) can cause cardiac arrhythmias within 48 hours of administration, so there is a big gap in what we currently know about toxicity.
Dr. Conyers and his colleagues at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute will launch a new program to study the sensitivity of the Apple Watch ECG app. Following a controlled study involving 40 children and adolescents, the team hopes to better understand cardiac toxicity.
Apple Watch drives research into heart health
Apple reports that Dr. So-Min Cheong, a professor at the Bush School at Texas A&M University, was in Palo Alto when a series of wildfires ravaged California. It was September 9, 2020, and while firefighters were on the scene, Dr. Cheong took the opportunity to explore how Apple Watch can help research the effects of wildfire smoke on people. Opposite Apple told Dr. Cheong:
General health recommendations or off-the-shelf measurements weren't good enough for me. People are unique. Everyone is different when it comes to their health and I wanted to know more. A colleague at Stanford had told me about his experience with the Apple Watch, which is known for its heart rate accuracy. I'd always wanted to do more noninvasive, sensor-based analysis on people to get more accurate health measurements.
Starting in March 2023, Dr. Cheong and her colleagues will equip up to 200 firefighters with Apple Watches as part of a new study. At the Amsterdam University Medical Center, Dr. Sebastiaan Blok, head of the e-health department at the Cardiology Center of the Netherlands, and his colleagues plan to use the Apple Watch to detect atrial fibrillation (AFib). Dr. Nicole van Steijn, a member of the research team, told Apple:
There are about 300,000 people [in the Netherlands] who have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. But there are also an estimated 100,000 people who have atrial fibrillation but don't know it, probably because they don't have any symptoms yet.
More than 300 patients (over 65 years old) are expected to sign up for the study. Half of the participants will wear an Apple Watch for at least 12 hours a day. (Image: Apple)
