Abstract
Gastric disorders are widely spread among the population of any age. At the moment, the diagnosis is made by using invasive systems that cause several side effects. The present manuscript proposes an innovative non-invasive sensing system for diagnosing gastric dysfunctions. The Electro-GastroGraphy (EGG) technique is used to record myoelectrical signals of stomach activities. Although EGG technique is well known for a long time, several issues concerning the signal processing and the definition of suitable diagnostic criteria are still unresolved. So, EGG is to this day a trial practice. The authors want to overcome the current limitations of the technique and improve its relevance. To this purpose, a smart EGG sensing system has been designed to non-invasively diagnose gastric disorders. In detail, the system records the gastric slow waves by means of skin surface electrodes placed in the epigastric area. Cutaneous myoelectrical signals are so acquired from the body surface in proximity of stomach. Electro-gastrographic record is then processed. According to the diagnostic model designed from the authors, the system estimates specific diagnostic parameters in time and frequency domains. It uses Discrete Wavelet Transform to obtain power spectral density diagrams. The frequency and power of the EGG waveform and the dominant frequency components are so analyzed. The defined diagnostic parameters are put in comparison with the reference values of a normal EGG in order to estimate the presence of gastric pathologies by the analysis of arrhythmias (<em>tachygastria</em>, <em>bradygastria</em> and irregular rhythm). The paper aims to describe the design of the system and of the arrhythmias detection algorithm. Prototype development and experimental data will be presented in future works. Preliminary results show an interesting relevance of the suggested technique so that it can be considered as a promising non-invasive tool for diagnosing gastrointestinal motility disorders.
Highlights
The rapid advancement of information technologies allows the physicians to be able to smartly follow and assist the patient in real time even remotely through simple dedicated applications [1]-[3]
EGG records with gastric disorders have been generated in Matlab environment to verify the degree to which the embedded numerical algorithm responds to slight changes of the diagnostic parameters
Several studies in literature show an interesting relevance of electro-gastrography to diagnose gastric disorders
Summary
The rapid advancement of information technologies allows the physicians to be able to smartly follow and assist the patient in real time even remotely through simple dedicated applications [1]-[3]. These and further features must be analysed in order to define suitable diagnostic criteria for characterizing the occurrence of gastric motility disorders Another interesting application of the electro-gastrographic technique concerns the study of patients affected from vomiting, unexplained nausea, improper digestion of food and gastroparesis. Medical trials have been carried out to get important information on the mechanism that regulates the activity of stomach muscles and nerves in presence of those disorders, [19]-[21] For example, it can be an helpful technique in understanding the origin of the unexplained contractions which cause vomiting in patients affected by anorexia, [22], [23].
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