Computer-aided diagnosis of pneumonia in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

BACKGROUND: Early diagnosis of pneumonia and discrimination between this disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations in patients with COPD are crucial for optimal clinical management and treatment. OBJECTIVES: To examine the use of computerized analysis of respiratory sounds, a hybrid system based on principal component analysis (PCA) and probabilistic neural networks (PNNs), to aid the detection of coexisting pneumonia in patients with COPD. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A convenience sample of 58 patients with COPD (25 patients hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia and 33 owing to acute exacerbation of COPD) was studied. Auscultations were performed by the patients themselves on their suprasternal notch. Short-time Fourier transform analysis was used to extract features from the recorded respiratory sounds, PCA was selected for dimensionality reduction and a PNN was trained as classifier. 10-Fold cross-validation and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis were used to estimate the system performance. RESULTS: Based on the cross-validation results, a sensitivity and a specificity of 72% and 81.8%, respectively, were achieved in validation data. The operating point was selected to maximize the specificity and sensitivity pair in the training set. DISCUSSION: The results strongly suggest that electronic self-auscultation at a single location (suprasternal notch) can support diagnosis of pneumonia in patients with COPD. CONCLUSIONS: A simple, cost-effective method has been proposed to aid decision-making in areas with no radiological facilities available and in resource-constrained settings, and could have a great diagnostic impact on telemedicine applications.

Probabilistic neural network approach for the detection of SAHS from overnight pulse oximetry.

Diagnosis of sleep apnea hypopnoea syndrome (SAHS) depends on the apnea-hypopnea index determined by the standard in-laboratory overnight polysomnography (PSG). PSG is a costly, labor intensive and, at times, inaccessible approach. Because of the high demand, the need for timely diagnosis and the associated costs, novel methods for SAHS detection are required. In this study, a novel multivariate system is proposed for SAHS detection from the analysis of overnight blood oxygen saturation (SpO2). 115 subjects with SAHS suspicion were studied. A starting set of 17 time domain, stochastic, frequency-domain and nonlinear features were initially computed from SpO2 recordings. Sequential forward feature selection and a probabilistic neural network with leave-one-out cross-validation were applied. Oxygen desaturations below a 4 % threshold within 30 s (ODI430), restorations of 4 % within 10 s (RES4), median value (Sat50), SD1 Poincaré descriptor and the relative power in the 0.013-0.067 Hz frequency band (PSD15/75) formed the optimum features subset. 92.4 % sensitivity and 95.9 % specificity were achieved. Results significantly outperformed the univariate and multivariate approaches reported in literature. The outcome is a simple cost-effective tool that could be used as an alternative or supplementary method in a domiciliary approach to early diagnosis of SAHS.

Automated frequency domain analysis of oxygen saturation as a screening tool for SAHS.

Sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (SAHS) is significantly underdiagnosed and new screening systems are needed. The analysis of oxygen desaturation has been proposed as a screening method. However, when oxygen saturation (SpO(2)) is used as a standalone single channel device, algorithms working in time domain achieve either a high sensitivity or a high specificity, but not usually both. This limitation arises from the dependence of time-domain analysis on absolute SpO(2) values and the lack of standardized thresholds defined as pathological. The aim of this study is to assess the degree of concordance between SAHS screening using offline frequency domain processing of SpO(2) signals and the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), and the diagnostic performance of such a new method. SpO(2) signals from 115 subjects were analyzed. Data were divided in a training data set (37) and a test set (78). Power spectral density was calculated and related to the desaturation index scored by physicians. A frequency desaturation index (FDI) was then estimated and its accuracy compared to the classical desaturation index and to the apnea-hypopnea index. The findings point to a high diagnostic agreement: the best sensitivity and specificity values obtained were 83.33% and 80.44%, respectively. Moreover, the proposed method does not rely on absolute SpO(2) values and is highly robust to artifacts.

An accelerometer-based device for sleep apnea screening.

This paper presents a body-fixed-sensor-based approach to assess potential sleep apnea patients. A trial involving 15 patients at a sleep unit was undertaken. Vibration sounds were acquired from an accelerometer sensor fixed with a noninvasive mounting on the suprasternal notch of subjects resting in supine position. Respiratory, cardiac, and snoring components were extracted by means of digital signal processing techniques. Mainly, the following biomedical parameters used in new sleep apnea diagnosis strategies were calculated: heart rate, heart rate variability, sympathetic and parasympathetic activity, respiratory rate, snoring rate, pitch associated with snores, and airflow indirect quantification. These parameters were compared to those obtained by means of polysomnography and an accurate microphone. Results demonstrated the feasibility of implementing an accelerometry-based portable device as a simple and cost-effective solution for contributing to the screening of sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome and other breathing disorders.

Mapping the human body for vibrations using an accelerometer.

In this paper, an accelerometer is used to measure the vibration of the neck and thorax, in order to detect important signals that can be used in the diagnosis of sleep apnoea. Accelerations produced by the heart signals, the breathing movement and the snoring sounds are detected by an accelerometer attached to the skin. Mean power levels of the signal in different frequency bands are used to map the surface of the neck and thorax, where the accelerometer has been positioned in 15 different locations. A program in Matlab is used to fit this surface plot. Getting an adequate location for the accelerometer is a clear help to the diagnosis of sleep apnea.