LifeShirt® acquisition system to monitor ECG from ambulatory swine and the implementation of an arrhythmia detection algorithm

A wearable cardiopulmonary monitoring system, a LifeShirt^reg, was used to acquire continuous electrocardiograms (ECGs) from ambulatory swine. The animals received intracoronary injections of autologous mesenchymal stem cells, and the LifeShirt^reg was used for long-duration ECG monitoring in pre-defined periods post cell infusion. The system used here was developed for measurements from non-human primates and canines; however, we demonstrated that it could be used to non-invasively measure ECGs from swine without creating undue stress or restricting movement. A MATLAB-based analysis algorithm was developed to automatically detect premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) that arose 8-10 hours after cell delivery with spontaneous resolution 2-3 days post-infusion. Template based cross-correlation was used to detect the PVCs and identify regions of consecutive ventricular rhythm. The final algorithm was highly specific and sensitive when tested on records from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. The algorithm was subsequently used to automatically identify and quantify PVCs from over 200 hours of ECG data obtained from nine ambulatory swine.