Detection of Atrial Fibrillation Using a Ring-Type Wearable Device (CardioTracker) and Deep Learning Analysis of Photoplethysmography Signals: Prospective Observational Proof-of-Concept Study.

BACKGROUND: Continuous photoplethysmography (PPG) monitoring with a wearable device may aid the early detection of atrial fibrillation (AF). OBJECTIVE: We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of a ring-type wearable device (CardioTracker, CART), which can detect AF using deep learning analysis of PPG signals. METHODS: Patients with persistent AF who underwent cardioversion were recruited prospectively. We recorded PPG signals at the finger with CART and a conventional pulse oximeter before and after cardioversion over a period of 15 min (each instrument). Cardiologists validated the PPG rhythms with simultaneous single-lead electrocardiography. The PPG data were transmitted to a smartphone wirelessly and analyzed with a deep learning algorithm. We also validated the deep learning algorithm in 20 healthy subjects with sinus rhythm (SR). RESULTS: In 100 study participants, CART generated a total of 13,038 30-s PPG samples (5850 for SR and 7188 for AF). Using the deep learning algorithm, the diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive-predictive value, and negative-predictive value were 96.9%, 99.0%, 94.3%, 95.6%, and 98.7%, respectively. Although the diagnostic accuracy decreased with shorter sample lengths, the accuracy was maintained at 94.7% with 10-s measurements. For SR, the specificity decreased with higher variability of peak-to-peak intervals. However, for AF, CART maintained consistent sensitivity regardless of variability. Pulse rates had a lower impact on sensitivity than on specificity. The performance of CART was comparable to that of the conventional device when using a proper threshold. External validation showed that 94.99% (16,529/17,400) of the PPG samples from the control group were correctly identified with SR. CONCLUSIONS: A ring-type wearable device with deep learning analysis of PPG signals could accurately diagnose AF without relying on electrocardiography. With this device, continuous monitoring for AF may be promising in high-risk populations. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04023188; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04023188.

Deep Learning Approaches to Detect Atrial Fibrillation Using Photoplethysmographic Signals: Algorithms Development Study.

BACKGROUND: Wearable devices have evolved as screening tools for atrial fibrillation (AF). A photoplethysmographic (PPG) AF detection algorithm was developed and applied to a convenient smartphone-based device with good accuracy. However, patients with paroxysmal AF frequently exhibit premature atrial complexes (PACs), which result in poor unmanned AF detection, mainly because of rule-based or handcrafted machine learning techniques that are limited in terms of diagnostic accuracy and reliability. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to develop deep learning (DL) classifiers using PPG data to detect AF from the sinus rhythm (SR) in the presence of PACs after successful cardioversion. METHODS: We examined 75 patients with AF who underwent successful elective direct-current cardioversion (DCC). Electrocardiogram and pulse oximetry data over a 15-min period were obtained before and after DCC and labeled as AF or SR. A 1-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) and recurrent neural network (RNN) were chosen as the 2 DL architectures. The PAC indicator estimated the burden of PACs on the PPG dataset. We defined a metric called the confidence level (CL) of AF or SR diagnosis and compared the CLs of true and false diagnoses. We also compared the diagnostic performance of 1D-CNN and RNN with previously developed AF detectors (support vector machine with root-mean-square of successive difference of RR intervals and Shannon entropy, autocorrelation, and ensemble by combining 2 previous methods) using 10 5-fold cross-validation processes. RESULTS: Among the 14,298 training samples containing PPG data, 7157 samples were obtained during the post-DCC period. The PAC indicator estimated 29.79% (2132/7157) of post-DCC samples had PACs. The diagnostic accuracy of AF versus SR was 99.32% (70,925/71,410) versus 95.85% (68,602/71,570) in 1D-CNN and 98.27% (70,176/71,410) versus 96.04% (68,736/71,570) in RNN methods. The area under receiver operating characteristic curves of the 2 DL classifiers was 0.998 (95% CI 0.995-1.000) for 1D-CNN and 0.996 (95% CI 0.993-0.998) for RNN, which were significantly higher than other AF detectors (P<.001). If we assumed that the dataset could emulate a sufficient number of patients in training, both DL classifiers improved their diagnostic performances even further especially for the samples with a high burden of PACs. The average CLs for true versus false classification were 98.56% versus 78.75% for 1D-CNN and 98.37% versus 82.57% for RNN (P<.001 for all cases). CONCLUSIONS: New DL classifiers could detect AF using PPG monitoring signals with high diagnostic accuracy even with frequent PACs and could outperform previously developed AF detectors. Although diagnostic performance decreased as the burden of PACs increased, performance improved when samples from more patients were trained. Moreover, the reliability of the diagnosis could be indicated by the CL. Wearable devices sensing PPG signals with DL classifiers should be validated as tools to screen for AF.