Improving reliability for measuring ST deviation in suspected acute coronary syndrome.

Background: Standard 12‑lead ECG is used for diagnosis and risk stratification in suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients. Artifacts have significant impact on the measuring quality, which consequently affect the diagnostic decision. We used a signal quality indicator (SQI) to identify the ECG segments with lower artifact levels which we hypothesized would improve ST measurements.

Methods: The Staff III 12‑lead ECG database was used with the ECG segments before balloon inflation (n = 185). SQI scores per second were calculated and a 10-s ECG segment with least noise and artifacts (Clean10) was identified for each minute of recording. The first 10 s of ECG recordings (First10) for each minute were selected as a reference. The Philips DXL™ algorithm was used to measure the ST levels at J-point, +20 ms, +40 ms, +60 ms, and + 80 ms after the J-point. Standard deviations (SDs) for the ST measurements for each of the 185 ECG records were calculated for the Clean10 and for the First10 across records. The resulting SDs for the Clean10 were compared with the SDs for the First10 using the Wilcoxon signed rank test.

Results: The results indicated that 1) The SDs for the Clean10 are lower than that of the First10; 2) The SDs for J+20 ms and J+40 ms are lowest among the 5 different measuring points although similar improvement for the Clean10 over the First10 is observed for J+60 ms and J+80 ms as well; 3) The improvement at the J-point was not as high as other ST measurements.

Conclusions: The SQI is demonstrated as an efficient tool to identify the ECG segments with lower artifacts that produce more consistent and reliable ST measurement. The measurements at J+20 ms demonstrated the highest consistency among the five studied measuring points.