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A Method to Minimise the Impact of ECG Marker Inaccuracies on the Spatial QRS-T angle: Evaluation on 1,512 Manually Annotated ECGs

Young, WJ; van Duijvenboden, S; Ramírez, J; Jones, A; Tinker, A; Munroe, PB; Lambiase, PD; (2021) A Method to Minimise the Impact of ECG Marker Inaccuracies on the Spatial QRS-T angle: Evaluation on 1,512 Manually Annotated ECGs. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control , 64 , Article 102305. 10.1016/j.bspc.2020.102305. Green open access

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Abstract

The spatial QRS-T angle (QRS-Ta) derived from the vectorcardiogram (VCG) is a strong risk predictor for ventricular arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death with potential use for mass screening. Accurate QRS-Ta estimation in the presence of ECG delineation errors is crucial for its deployment as a prognostic test. Our study assessed the effect of inaccurate QRS and T-wave marker placement on QRS-Ta estimation and proposes a robust method for its calculation. Reference QRS-Ta measurements were derived from 1,512 VCGs manually annotated by three expert reviewers. We systematically changed onset and offset timings of QRS and T-wave markers to simulate inaccurate placement. The QRS-Ta was recalculated using a standard approach and our proposed algorithm, which limits the impact of VCG marker inaccuracies by defining the vector origin as an interval preceding QRS-onset and redefines the beginning and end of QRS and T-wave loops. Using the standard approach, mean absolute errors (MAE) in peak QRS-Ta were >40% and sensitivity and precision in the detection of abnormality (>105°) were <80% and <65% respectively, when QRS-onset was delayed or QRS-offset anticipated >15 ms. Using our proposed algorithm, MAE for peak QRS-Ta were reduced to <4% and sensitivity and precision of abnormality were >94% for inaccuracies up to ±15 ms. Similar results were obtained for mean QRS-Ta. In conclusion, inaccuracies of QRS and T-wave markers can significantly influence the QRS-Ta. Our proposed algorithm provides robust QRS-Ta measurements in the presence of inaccurate VCG annotation, enabling its use in large datasets.

Type: Article
Title: A Method to Minimise the Impact of ECG Marker Inaccuracies on the Spatial QRS-T angle: Evaluation on 1,512 Manually Annotated ECGs
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.bspc.2020.102305
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bspc.2020.102305
Language: English
Additional information: © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Electrocardiogram, Vectorcardiogram, Spatial QRS-T angle, Automatic analysis, Population distribution
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Cardiovascular Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Cardiovascular Science > Clinical Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Cardiovascular Science > Population Science and Experimental Medicine
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Cardiovascular Science > Population Science and Experimental Medicine > MRC Unit for Lifelong Hlth and Ageing
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10115140
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