title: Automatic P-wave analysis of patients prone to atrial fibrillation.
abstract: A method is presented for automatic analysis of the P-wave, based on lead II of a 12-lead standard ECG, in resting conditions during a routine examination for the detection of patients prone to atrial fibrillation (AF), one of the most prevalent arrhythmias. First, the P-wave was delineated, and this was achieved in two steps: the detection of the QRS complexes for ECG segmentation, using a wavelet analysis method, and a hidden Markov model to represent one beat of the signal for P-wave isolation. Then, a set of parameters to detect patients prone to AF was calculated from the P-wave. The detection efficiency was validated on an ECG database of 145 patients, including a control group of 63 people and a study group of 82 patients with documented AF. A discriminant analysis was applied, and the results obtained showed a specificity and a sensitivity between 65% and 70%.
authors.affiliation: Ecole Nouvelle d'Ingénieurs en Communications, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Clavier
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Boucher
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lepage
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Blanc
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Cornily
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001281:Atrial Fibrillation / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008390:Markov Chains; D008875:Middle Aged; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted