Sex-specific differences in cardiovascular disease continue to influence how heart failure is recognized and diagnosed in clinical practice. Conditions such as Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF) and cardiac amyloidosis can present differently in women, creating diagnostic challenges that clinicians are continuously working to address.
These issues were explored during Ultromics’ February 24, 2026 webinar, Women and Heart Failure: How Can AI Help Close the Diagnostic Gap?, which brought together leading female cardiologists from institutions across the United States to examine disparities in diagnosis and the potential role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in echocardiography to support disease detection.
Leading the discussion on AI in cardiac imaging, Dr. Patricia Pellikka of Mayo Clinic explored how AI may assist clinicians in identifying patterns associated with complex cardiac diseases. She highlighted the application of EchoGo® Heart Failure and EchoGo® Cardiac Amyloidosis, AI-enabled echocardiographic tools designed to evaluate cardiac imaging and identify structural and functional patterns that may not always be readily apparent during routine interpretation.
Dr. Pellikka discussed the development, training, and validation of EchoGo® Heart Failure and EchoGo® Cardiac Amyloidosis devices and how these tools can be incorporated into existing clinical workflows to provide additional support for physicians in detecting disease early and putting patients on care pathways sooner.
The discussion was moderated by Dr. Sangita Sudharshan of Ascension St. Vincent Indianapolis, who introduced the webinar with an overview of the broader burden of heart failure in women and guided the panel conversation.
Dr. Carine Hamo of NYU Langone Health focused on HFpEF and its disproportionate effects on women. HFpEF accounts for approximately half of heart failure cases, and women outnumber men among patients with incident disease at a 2:1 ratio. Because diagnosis requires detailed evaluation of diastolic function and filling pressures, the condition can be difficult to recognize during routine clinical assessment.
Dr. Hamo also highlighted symptom differences in women, including higher rates of dyspnea on exertion, exercise intolerance, and lower extremity edema—symptoms that may overlap with other conditions or be attributed to aging or comorbidities, contributing to delayed diagnosis.
The webinar then shifted to transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR-CM), with Dr. Nitasha Sarswat of University of Chicago Medicine discussing diagnostic gaps affecting women. Although ATTR-CM has historically been viewed as a male-predominant condition, emerging evidence suggests women may be underdiagnosed due to differences in cardiac structure and disease presentation.
Women with ATTR-CM often present with smaller ventricular cavities, less pronounced wall thickening, and preserved ejection fraction compared with men. These factors may make the disease harder to identify using traditional diagnostic thresholds and may contribute to delayed diagnosis and lower representation of women in clinical trials studying amyloid cardiomyopathy.
The session concluded with a Q&A moderated by Dr. Sudharshan, where panelists addressed clinical questions from attendees and discussed the importance of improving recognition of cardiovascular disease in women while continuing to evaluate the role of emerging technologies in clinical practice.
The full webinar recording is available using the links above.