Agentic Autodiscovery of Diastolic Dysfunction Phenotypes from Surface Electrocardiogram
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Background
Left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) is a major determinant of heart failure (HF), yet its assessment relies on multiparametric echocardiography, limiting scalability. We previously demonstrated that generative artificial intelligence (AI) can synthesize tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) waveforms from the 12-lead ECG. The growing complexity of candidate architecture creates a need for automated model-discovery frameworks.
Objectives
To evaluate agentic AI-based auto-discovery for ECG-based LVDD assessment using either raw ECG or synthetic TDI waveforms.
Methods
Two attention-based agentic AI architectures were developed using an automated large language model-driven refinement framework that optimized transfer-learning and multimodal architectures through autonomous proposal, validation, and selection of candidate model configurations. Development was performed in 1,011 paired ECG-echocardiography studies and externally validated in 983 patients using two reference frameworks: (i) data-driven phenogroups and (ii) the 2025 ASE Diastolic Function Guidelines. External validation was performed in CODE-15% (n=219,567) for HF-related mortality and EchoNext (n=35,718) for structural heart disease associations.
Results
Despite the modest cohort size, the ECG-based agentic search achieved area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUCs) of 0.87 (95% CI: 0.85-0.89) and 0.83 (95% CI: 0.80-0.86) for phenogroup and guideline-based LVDD severity classification. Corresponding AUCs for the synthetic TDI-based model were 0.82 (95% CI: 0.80-0.85) and 0.80 (95% CI: 0.77-0.84), respectively. In large-scale external validation, both models stratified incident HF mortality with subdistribution hazard ratios ranging 5.5 to 9.5 (Gray’s p<0.001 for all). Time-dependent discrimination for incident HF mortality exceeded a publicly available convolutional neural network model (ECG2HF) (ΔAUC range: +0.14 to +0.20). Both models demonstrated consistent associations with structural heart disease outcomes.
Conclusions
Agentic auto-discovery enabled data-efficient assessment of LVDD from surface ECG by combining physiologically informed transfer learning with autonomous architecture optimization, achieving robust external generalizability. This approach may facilitate broader access to diastolic function assessment beyond conventional echocardiography.
