Researchers from the University of Cambridge have developed a device that allows people with or without medical training to easily record the sound of their hearts. Unlike stethoscopes, the device works well if not precisely placed on the chest: Its larger, flexible sensing areas help capture clearer heart sounds than traditional stethoscopes.
The device can also be used on clothing, making patients, especially women, more comfortable during routine checkups or community heart health screening programs.
Heart sound recordings can be saved on the device and can then be used to detect signs of heart valve disease. Researchers are also developing a machine learning algorithm that can automatically detect signs of valve disease. The result is IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.
Heart valve disease (valvular heart disease or VHD) is known as the “next heart epidemic” and has a worse prognosis than many forms of cancer. Up to 50% of patients with significant VHD are still undiagnosed, and many patients only see their doctor if they have a disease and suffer from severe complications.
In the UK, the NHS and NICE have identified early detection of heart valve disease as a key goal, which can both improve patients’ quality of life and reduce costs.
Performing a stethoscope or auscultation is the diagnosis of most heart valve diseases. However, only 38% of patients with valve disease symptoms have stethoscopes.
“The symptoms of VHD are easily confused with certain respiratory diseases, which is why so many patients are not under stethoscope examination,” said Professor Anurag Agarwal of the Cambridge Engineering Department who led the study. “However, the stethoscope examination is quite poor in diagnosing heart valve disease, so GP is required for the examination.”
In addition, auscultation tests require patients to partially undress, which is both time-consuming in short-term GP appointments and may feel uncomfortable for patients, especially for female patients in routine screening programs.
The “gold standard” used to diagnose heart valve disease is echocardiography, but this can only be done in hospitals, and the NHS wait list is very long – in many hospitals between six and nine months.
“To help lower the waiting list and ensure we diagnose heart valve disease early so that simple interventions can improve quality of life, we hope to develop an alternative to a stethoscope that is easy to use as a screening tool,” Agarwal said.
Agarwal and his colleagues have developed a handheld device about the diameter of a drink roller coaster, which could be a solution. Any health professional can use their equipment to accurately record heart sounds and can be used on clothing.
While conventional or electronic stethoscopes have a single sensor, Cambridge developed devices have six sensors, meaning that doctors or nurses (even people without any medical training) are more likely to get accurate readings, simply because the surface area is much larger.
The device contains materials that can transmit vibrations so that they can be used on clothing, which is especially important when conducting community screening programs to protect patient privacy. Between each of the six sensors is a vibration-absorbing gel so the sensors do not interfere with each other.
The researchers tested healthy participants with different body shapes and sizes and recorded their heart sounds. Their next step will be to test the device in clinical settings for various patients for echocardiography.
At the same time as the device was developed, researchers developed a machine learning algorithm that can automatically detect signs of valve disease using recorded heart sounds. Early testing of the algorithm showed that it outperforms GP in detecting heart valve diseases.
“If successful, the device could become an affordable and scalable solution for heart health screening, especially in areas where healthcare resources are limited,” Agarwal said.
The device may be a useful tool for classification patients waiting for echocardiography, so patients with signs of valve disease can be seen early in the hospital, the researchers said.
Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s commercialization department, has filed a patent for the device. Anurag Agarwal is a member of Emanuel College, Cambridge.
refer to:
Andrew McDonald et al. “A flexible multi-sensor device that allows hand-held perception of cardiac sound through untrained users.” IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics (2025). doi:10.1109/jbhi.2025.3551882
