Classification of ischemic and dilated cardiomyopathy patients based on the analysis of the pulse transit time

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Diagnostics

Background:

• Cardiomyopathies are prevalent in the elderly, and identifying their cause remains difficult.
• Accurate etiological diagnosis is crucial for effective patient management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To classify cardiomyopathy patients based on etiology using pulse transit time (PTT) derived indices.
• To evaluate the diagnostic potential of PTT for distinguishing between ischemic (ICM) and dilated (DCM) cardiomyopathy.

Main Methods:

• Extraction and characterization of PTT time series from electrocardiogram (ECG) and blood pressure signals.
• Application of statistical descriptive indices and joint symbolic dynamics for PTT analysis.
• Development of support vector machine (SVM) models using optimized PTT indices for classification.

Main Results:

• The optimal SVM model achieved 89.6% accuracy, 78.5% sensitivity, and 100% specificity in differentiating ICM from DCM patients.
• Models comparing cardiomyopathy patients (CMP) to healthy controls (CON) reached 91.3% accuracy.
• Significantly lower PTT was observed in ischemic cardiomyopathy patients compared to dilated cardiomyopathy patients.

Conclusions:

• Pulse transit time analysis is a valuable tool for classifying cardiomyopathy etiologies, particularly distinguishing between ICM and DCM.
• PTT offers a non-invasive and accurate method for improving the etiological diagnosis of cardiomyopathies.
• This approach has significant clinical relevance for the elderly population affected by heart muscle diseases.