Preliminary Study Based on Myocardial Infarction Classification of 12-Lead Electrocardiography Images with Deep Learning Methods

Abstract

In contemporary medicine, the development of computer-aided diagnostic systems using Electrocardiography (ECG) signals has gained significance for the diagnosis of heart diseases. Myocardial infarction (MI) is recognized as the condition where blood flow to the heart muscle is obstructed due to blockages in coronary vessels. In this study, four deep learning approaches were employed to automatically identify different MI conditions (STEMI, NSTEMI, USAP) using images generated from 12-lead ECG signals. The utilized architectures include deep neural networks such as Visual Geometry Group-16 (VGG-16), AlexNet, Residual Neural Network (ResNet), SqueezeNet and an ensemble model composed of these networks. With the proposed method, classification was performed based on 10-second grayscale images of 12-lead ECG signals for HC-STEMI, HC-NSTEMI, HC-USAP, and NSTEMI-STEMI conditions. According to the obtained results, the HC-STEMI group achieved the highest performance with a cross-validated 0.8237 F1 score using the AlexNet architecture. Among the novel contributions of this study is the image-based ECG classification method that can be more easily adapted to clinical applications and the analysis of the potential use of detecting different MI conditions in clinical practices. In conclusion, this study sheds light on future research by demonstrating the significant potential of using multi-channel ECG signals in image format for MI diagnosis, paving the way for advancements in this field.