A novel attention-based cross-modal transfer learning framework for predicting cardiovascular disease

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a leading cause of death globally, presenting significant challenges in early detection and treatment. The complexity of CVD arises from its multifaceted nature, influenced by a combination of genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. Traditional diagnostic approaches often struggle to effectively integrate and interpret the heterogeneous data associated with CVD. Addressing this challenge, we introduce a novel Attention-Based Cross-Modal (ABCM) transfer learning framework. This framework innovatively merges diverse data types, including clinical records, medical imagery, and genetic information, through an attention-driven mechanism. This mechanism adeptly identifies and focuses on the most pertinent attributes from each data source, thereby enhancing the model's ability to discern intricate interrelationships among various data types. Our extensive testing and validation demonstrate that the ABCM framework significantly surpasses traditional single-source models and other advanced multi-source methods in predicting CVD. Specifically, our approach achieves an accuracy of 93.5%, precision of 92.0%, recall of 94.5%, and an impressive area under the curve (AUC) of 97.2%. These results not only underscore the superior predictive capability of our model but also highlight its potential in offering more accurate and early detection of CVD. The integration of cross-modal data through attention-based mechanisms provides a deeper understanding of the disease, paving the way for more informed clinical decision-making and personalized patient care.

Keywords: Attention mechanisms; Cardiovascular disease prediction; Cross-modal transfer learning; Multimodal feature fusion; Transformer based models.