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Phonocardiogram signal analysis: a review
1Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Insights
Heart sound analysis, including phonocardiogram (PCG) signals, offers vital diagnostic information but faces challenges. This review explores signal processing techniques to unlock the full potential of heart sound analysis for improved cardiac assessment.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Cardiology
- Signal Processing
Background:
- Heart diseases often manifest as changes in heart sounds and murmurs before other clinical signs appear.
- Physicians primarily use auscultation for initial cardiac assessment, but its effectiveness is limited.
- Analysis of phonocardiogram (PCG) signals is not widely adopted due to controversies in sound genesis and lack of quantitative methods.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the nature of heart sound signals and their diagnostic potential.
- To explore various signal-processing techniques applied to phonocardiogram (PCG) analysis.
- To outline new research directions for improved quantitative analysis of cardiac auscultation signals.
Main Methods:
- Review of existing literature on heart sound signal characteristics.
- Analysis of established and emerging signal-processing techniques for PCG data.
- Identification of current limitations and future research avenues in cardiac sound analysis.
Main Results:
- Heart sound signals contain more information than detectable by human auscultation or visual inspection.
- Various signal-processing methods can extract quantitative features from PCG signals.
- Current techniques face challenges related to signal variability and interpretation.
Conclusions:
- Quantitative analysis of heart sound signals holds significant promise for early and accurate cardiac diagnosis.
- Advancements in signal processing are crucial to overcome current limitations in PCG analysis.
- Further research is needed to establish reliable, quantitative methods for interpreting cardiac auscultation data.
Abstract:
Many disease of the heart cause changes in heart sounds and additional murmurs before other signs and symptoms appear. Hence, heart sound analysis by auscultation is the primary test conducted by physicians to assess the condition of the heart. Yet, heart sound analysis by auscultation as well as analysis of the phonocardiogram (PCG) signal have not gained widespread acceptance. This is due mainly to many controversies regarding the genesis of the sounds and the lack of quantitative techniques for reliable analysis of the signal features. The heart sound signal has much more information than can be assessed by the human ear or by visual inspection of the signal tracings on paper as currently practiced. Here, we review the nature of the heart sound signal and the various signal-processing techniques that have been applied to PCG analysis. Some new research directions are also outlined.