1. High Precision Digitization of Paper-Based ECG Records: A Step Toward Machine Learning
- Author
-
Mohammed Baydoun, Lise Safatly, Ossama K. Abou Hassan, Hassan Ghaziri, Ali El Hajj, and Hussain Isma'eel
- Subjects
Electrocardiogram ,digitization ,Matlab tool ,image processing ,Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics ,R858-859.7 ,Medical technology ,R855-855.5 - Abstract
Introduction: The electrocardiogram (ECG) plays an important role in the diagnosis of heart diseases. However, most patterns of diseases are based on old datasets and stepwise algorithms that provide limited accuracy. Improving diagnostic accuracy of the ECG can be done by applying machine learning algorithms. This requires taking existing scanned or printed ECGs of old cohorts and transforming the ECG signal to the raw digital (time (milliseconds), voltage (millivolts)) form. Objectives: We present a MATLAB-based tool and algorithm that converts a printed or scanned format of the ECG into a digitized ECG signal. Methods: 30 ECG scanned curves are utilized in our study. An image processing method is first implemented for detecting the ECG regions of interest and extracting the ECG signals. It is followed by serial steps that digitize and validate the results. Results: The validation demonstrates very high correlation values of several standard ECG parameters: PR interval 0.984 +/-0.021 (p-value
- Published
- 2019
- Full Text
- View/download PDF