Parameters affecting shock decision in pediatric automated defibrillation

There are important differences between adult and pediatric ECG. To approve their use in children, the adaptation of automated external defibrillator (AED) shock advice algorithms require a specific analysis of the particular pediatric ECG characteristics. In this study, we measured several pediatric ECG features and assessed their potential ability in the distinction between shockable and non-shockable pediatric rhythms. For this purpose, we compiled a total of 986 pediatric ECG samples classified into four rhythm types: 540 normal sinus rhythm (NSR), 322 supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), 66 ventricular tachycardia (VT) and 58 ventricular fibrillation (VF). The samples were collected from 613 patients of mean age 7.6 years. Five ECG parameters were calculated from the pediatric database: the pulse rate (PR), the percent power around the dominant frequency (DP), the percent power above 12.5 Hz (HP), the baseline content (BC) and the slope bandwidth (SB).