An analysis of the U-wave and its relation to the T-wave in body surface potential maps for healthy subjects and MI patients.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to analyze the U-wave morphology and its relation to the T-wave in one group of healthy subjects and in two groups of myocardial infarction (MI) patients-with and without ventricular tachycardia (VT) episodes. The context of the U-wave origin was also discussed and the U-wave as a potential marker of VT was investigated. METHODS: The study was carried out on three groups of subjects: 20 healthy subjects, 14 MI patients not at risk of VT, and 22 MI patients at risk of VT. The morphology of the repolarization phase was examined in the high-resolution body surface potential maps recorded from 64 surface ECG leads. The temporal and spatial distributions of several ECG parameters were studied. RESULTS: The U-wave was present in almost all the studied subjects. The spatial heterogeneity and smooth change in both the T- and U-wave shapes on the entire torso were observed in all the studied groups. The statistical significance of discrimination between the MI patients without VT and MI patients with VT was observed for QRS interval, QT interval, U-wave integral, and normalized U-wave integral. CONCLUSIONS: High-resolution measurement of body surface potentials and an advanced data analysis allow for a detailed description of U-wave morphology and its relation to the T-wave. This might be of value in discriminating intracardiac repolarization effects, mechano-electrical feedback, and arrhythmia risk stratification.

The effect of precordial lead displacement on ECG morphology.

Inaccurate electrode placement and differences in inter-individual human anatomies can lead to misinterpretation of ECG examination. The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of precordial electrodes displacement on morphology of the ECG signal in a group of 60 patients with diagnosed cardiac disease. Shapes of ECG signals recorded from precordial leads were compared with signals interpolated at the points located at a distance up to 5 cm from lead location. Shape differences of the QRS and ST-T-U complexes were quantified using the distribution function method, correlation coefficient, root-mean-square error (RMSE), and normalized RMSE. The relative variability (RV) index was calculated to quantify inter-individual variability. ECG morphology changes were prominent in all shape parameters beyond 2 cm distance to precordial leads. Lead V2 was the most sensitive to displacement errors, followed by leads V3, V1, and V4, for which the direction of electrodes displacement plays a key role. No visible changes in ECG morphology were observed in leads V5 and V6, only scaling effect of signal amplitude. The RV ranged from 0.639 to 0.989. Distortions in ECG tracings increase with the distance from precordial lead, which are specific to chosen electrode, direction of displacement, and for ECG segment selected for calculations.

Risk assessment of ventricular arrhythmia using new parameters based on high resolution body surface potential mapping.

BACKGROUND: The effective screening of myocardial infarction (MI) patients threatened by ventricular tachycardia (VT) is an important issue in clinical practice, especially in the process of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy recommendation. This study proposes new parameters describing depolarization and repolarization inhomogeneity in high resolution body surface potential maps (HR BSPM) to identify MI patients threatened by VT. MATERIAL/METHODS: High resolution ECGs were recorded from 64 surface leads. Time-averaged HR BSPMs were used. Several parameters for arrhythmia risk assessment were calculated in 2 groups of MI patients: those with and without documented VT. Additionally, a control group of healthy subjects was studied. To assess the risk of VT, the following parameters were proposed: correlation coefficient between STT and QRST integral maps (STT_QRST_CORR), departure index of absolute value of STT integral map (STT_DI), and departure index of absolute value of T-wave shape index (TSI_DI). These new parameters were compared to known parameters: QRS width, QT interval, QT dispersion, Tpeak-Tend interval, total cosines between QRS complex and T wave, and non-dipolar content of QRST integral maps. RESULTS: STT_DI, TSI_DI, STT_QRST_CORR, QRS width, and QT interval parameters were statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05) in arrhythmia risk assessment. The highest sensitivity was found for the STT_DI parameter (0.77) and the highest specificity for TSI_DI (0.79). CONCLUSIONS: Arrhythmia risk is demonstrated by both abnormal spatial distribution of the repolarization phase and changed relationship between depolarization and repolarization phases, as well as their prolongation. The proposed new parameters might be applied for risk stratification of cardiac arrhythmia.

Evaluation of the QRS-T angle using the high-resolution 64-lead electrocardiography.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of the number of electrocardiogram (ECG) leads on the diagnostic value of TCRT (spatial QRS-T angle) parameter (12 standard ECG leads and 61 surface ECG leads were used). The TCRT parameter, which describes the spatial QRS-T angle, is a useful indicator of the risk of ventricular tachycardia (VT) and sudden cardiac death (SCD). It is usually calculated from standard 12 leads ECG. METHODS: The TCRT parameter was calculated from the three virtual orthogonal leads obtained by singular value decomposition of the averaged ECG signals. Sensitivity and specificity of TCRT parameter in identifying VT patients were tested on two groups of patients after myocardial infarction: 13 non - VT patients and 30 VT patients. Additionally 17 healthy volunteers were studied as a control group. RESULTS: Mean value (+/-SD) of TCRT parameter calculated for 61 leads was -0.80+/-0.27 for VT patients and 0.27+/-0.46 for non VT patients. For 12 standard leads TCRT mean value was -0.80+/-0.22 for VT patients and 0.27+/-0.49 for non VT patients. Sensitivity for VT patients was 87% (61 leads) and 83% (12 leads). Specificity in non-VT group was 100% for both lead sets. CONCLUSIONS: Results of the study show distinct differences in the TCRT parameter values between VT patients and non VT patients for both lead sets. The sensitivities of the TCRT parameter obtained for 61 leads and for 12 standard leads were comparable.

Body surface ECG signal shape dispersion.

The spatial distribution of the shape of the electrocardiography (ECG) waves obtained by body surface potential mapping (BSPM) is studied, using a 64-channel high-resolution ECG system. The index associated to each lead is the shape difference between its ECG wave and a reference computed taking into account all the leads on the same column. The reference is either a selected real wave or a synthetic signal computed by integral shape averaging (ISA). Better results are obtained with the ISA signal using the distribution function method (DFM) for computing the shape difference. The spatial dispersion of ECG waves is showed to allow the separation of patients after myocardial infarction (MI) from healthy subjects. In addition, the reference signal position for each column is computed. The path linking these positions appears as an invariant, i.e., it is independent of the subject and the ECG wave.