Posterior ECG: Producing a new electrocardiogram signal from vectorcardiogram using partial linear transformation

Abstract

Various techniques are used in diagnosing cardiac diseases. One of these techniques is using electrocardiogram (ECG) tool. In special cardiac cases like atrial fibrillation and posterior myocardial infraction the cardiologist need some information from posterior side of the patient heart, that it can be achieved by using right-posterior ECG method (17 lead ECG). In right-posterior method, position of the patient must be changed in his/her side, so time is waste and patient would be more tired because of taking ECG signals two times. In this study vectorcardiogram (VCG) signals are used as a tool for providing posterior information of the heart. However because for cardiologists is much easier to work with ECG signals for detecting some cardiac diseases, in this study a new method using partial linear transformation is introduced to get posterior ECG leads (V7, V8, V9) from VCG signal. VCG and ECG signals that were used in this study obtained from 30 healthy persons. We presented a statistical approach to transform 3-lead Frank VCG to 15-lead ECG signals and vice versa, based on partial linear transformation (Least Square Method). Also our linear transformation function would be compared with affine transformation functions. The recorder device was Cardiax digital recorder system. The results show that for healthy subjects, the partial linear transformation (least square method) that is presented in this paper maps 3-lead VCG to15-lead ECG, is more accurate than affine transformation function. Regarding the obtained results in this study, ECG signals that derived from VCG signals by using our method was more similar to measured ECG signals than ones derived by using affine transformation. Therefore, by using this transformation function achieving to posterior information of the case heart would be more accurate and useful.