Artificial Intelligence to Scale Early Rheumatic Heart Disease Detection (SHIELD 1)

May 22, 2026 updated by: Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati
The main goal of this project is to see if RADAR (Rapid AI-assisted Detection and Analysis of Rheumatic heart disease), which is a machine and deep-learning AI model, can help make rheumatic heart disease (RHD) screening easier to expand. Specifically, the project will test whether RADAR can screen as accurately-or more accurately-than current methods, and whether it can be used effectively in different low-resource settings. The aim is to show that RADAR could be adopted and used widely around the world.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

62

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • Uganda
      • Kampala, Uganda
        • Uganda Heart Institute
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Doreen Nakagaayi

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Employed at a participating ADUNU facility
  • Holds a designated role in the ADUNU program as a nurse screener

Exclusion Criteria:

  • None. The pragmatic trial design includes all eligible staff at participating facilities.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Diagnostic
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Standard non-AI echocardiography
In the Standard non-AI Echocardiography arm, participants will receive the current standard of care under the ADUNU program, which includes a single parasternal long-axis view with black-and-white and color Doppler imaging. Providers have been trained to recognize mitral regurgitation greater than 1.5 or 2 cm, any aortic insufficiency, qualitatively reduced left ventricular systolic function, and pericardial effusion. Detection of any of these findings constitutes a screen positive, prompting referral for a confirmatory echocardiogram.
Experimental: RADAR-AI-assisted echocardiography
In the RADAR Echocardiography arm, participants will undergo AI-assisted screening according to the well-established RADAR protocol including the same image acquisition protocol but interpreted by the tablet-based software based on two independent AI algorithms 1) RHD positive or negative and 2) mitral regurgitation jet length. Positive findings from either algorithm constitutes a screen positive. Providers may also refer for other concerns.
Diagnostic test: AI assisted echocardiography
Continue standard of care with AI-assisted echocardiography

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Accuracy of Provider RHD Screening
Time Frame: 1 year
The number of correctly identified (positive or negative) screenings divided by the total number of exams.
1 year

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Interpretation Sensitivity
Time Frame: 6 months
The number of correctly identified positive screening exams divided by the sum of correctly identified positive and incorrectly identified negative exams.
6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati

Collaborators

Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Ochsner Health System
Uganda Heart Institute
Children's National Health Center

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Andrea Beaton, Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2028

Study Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2028

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 14, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 14, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

May 20, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 27, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 22, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2026-0304

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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