EKG system and method using statistical analysis of heartbeats and topographic mapping of body surface potentials

摘要

The Heart State Analyzer (HSA) is a system and method in medical non- invasive electrocardiographic (EKG) analysis of human heart beats for the early detection of certain heart diseases in which a large number of electrodes, for example, 32 to 64, are attached on the chest, back and sides of the patient, i.e., "body surface". The electrical signals detected by the electrodes ae converted to digital data, treated to remove muscle artifact and other noise, and then analyzed mathematically to determine the presence or absence of abnormal body surface potential distributions, or of unusual beat morphologies, compared statistically to the self-norm "typical beat" of the patient and also compared to a data base compiled from comparable normal population groups. The results of the statistical analysis are displayed as topographical maps of the body surface, color coded to represent the presence of significant derivations from the norms, defined as "abnormality", i.e., abnormal spatio-temporal patterns of voltages on the body surface, or as waveshape or histogram displays of features, similarly Z-transformed and color coded. Discriminant functions, stored in the heart state analyzer, estimate the relative probability of various cardiac pathologies.