Characterization of the location and extent of myocardial infarction using heart vector analysis

An innovative method was proposed on the basis of vectorcardiography to characterize the location and extent of moderate to large, relatively compact infarcts using ECG evidence. It is assumed that heart vector is proportional to relevant active depolarization area(s). The normal VCG was then used to examine our ideas based on the information of location, amplitude, and direction of heart vector at any instant that is included in it. The model-based comparison of cases under study and relevant normal VCGs gives region and extent of myocardial infarction. Three criteria were finally defined to evaluate the presented method based on Physionet database. EPD, which is the percentage discrepancy between the extent of the infarct as estimated from our proposed method and as determined from the gold standard. SO, which was defined as the overlap between the sets of infarct segments as estimated and as determined from the gold standard. And CED, which is the distance between the centroid (geometrical center) of the infarct as estimated from our method and as determined from the gold standard. Finally, we gained the values of EPD equal to 32, SO equal to 0.933 and CED equal to 1. The presented method is not applicable in cases of hypertrophy, Bundle Branch Block (BBB) and arrhythmia which can be a plan for future work.