A vectorcardiogram-based classification system for the detection of Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction (MI), generally known as a heart attack, is one of the top leading causes of mortality in the world. In clinical diagnosis, cardiologists generally utilize 12-lead ECG system to classify patients into MI symptoms: 1. ST segment elevation, 2. ST segment depression or T wave inversion. However unstable ischemic syndromes have rapidly changing supply versus demand characteristics that is one of the several limitations of 12-lead ECG system for MI detection. In addition, the ECG sensor placements of 12-lead system is not easily donned and doffed for tele-healthcare monitoring at home. Vectorcardiogram (VCG) system in clinic is another type of diagnosis plot which represents the magnitude and direction of the electrical potential in the form of a vector loop during cardiac electric activity. The VCG system can easily acquire three ECG waves from X, Y, Z directions to composite vector signal in space and the VCG signals can be transferred to 12-lead ECG signal through Dower transformation and vice versa. Hence, this study attempts to develop a VCG-based classification system for the detection of Myocardial infarction. In the experiment results, the proposed system can select the proper ECG features based on cardiologist´s knowledge and proposed principal moments of QRS complex. The classification performance of MI detection can be reached to 99.89% of sensitivity, 92.51% of specificity, 95.35% of positive predictive value, and 96.96% overall accuracy with maximum-likelihood classifier (MLC).