Digital phono- and electro-cardiography: Predicting echocardiographic parameters for telemedicine screening

Our study was performed to assess the clinical value of digital phono- and electrocardiography (dPCG and dECG) in telemedicine application for screening. Relevant echocardiographic parameters (left ventricular (LV), both atrial dimensions; ejection fraction (EF), aortic Vmax, the grade of mitral and tricuspid regurgitation (MR and TR: semiquantitative grade I-III, the left ventricular mass index (LVMI)) were estimated from the dPCG and dECG data. The study population consists of 790 patients selected from our database; 395-395 patients were in the training and the test groups. The signal analysis of the dPCG consists of: discrete FFT analysis; automated heart sound detection; filtering and averaging; multivariate discriminant analysis. The dPCG estimated Vmax, EF, MR and TR, the prediction based on dECG for LVIDd, LVMI, LA and RA dimensions showed highly significant results.