title: The electronic stethoscope.
abstract: Most heart diseases are associated with and reflected by the sounds that the heart produces. Heart auscultation, defined as listening to the heart sound, has been a very important method for the early diagnosis of cardiac dysfunction. Traditional auscultation requires substantial clinical experience and good listening skills. The emergence of the electronic stethoscope has paved the way for a new field of computer-aided auscultation. This article provides an in-depth study of (1) the electronic stethoscope technology, and (2) the methodology for diagnosis of cardiac disorders based on computer-aided auscultation. The paper is based on a comprehensive review of (1) literature articles, (2) market (state-of-the-art) products, and (3) smartphone stethoscope apps. It covers in depth every key component of the computer-aided system with electronic stethoscope, from sensor design, front-end circuitry, denoising algorithm, heart sound segmentation, to the final machine learning techniques. Our intent is to provide an informative and illustrative presentation of the electronic stethoscope, which is valuable and beneficial to academics, researchers and engineers in the technical field, as well as to medical professionals to facilitate its use clinically. The paper provides the technological and medical basis for the development and commercialization of a real-time integrated heart sound detection, acquisition and quantification system.
authors.affiliation: National Heart Research Institute Singapore, National Heart Centre Singapore, 5 Hospital Drive, Singapore, 169609, Singapore. leng.shuang@nhcs.com.sg.
authors.forename: Shuang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Leng
authors.affiliation: National Heart Research Institute Singapore, National Heart Centre Singapore, 5 Hospital Drive, Singapore, 169609, Singapore. tan.ru.san@nhcs.com.sg.|Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, 8 College Road, Singapore, 169857, Singapore. tan.ru.san@nhcs.com.sg.
authors.forename: Ru San
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Microelectronics, A*STAR, 11 Science Park Road, Singapore, 117685, Singapore. chaitc@ime.a-star.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Kevin Tshun Chuan
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Chai
authors.affiliation: Institute of Microelectronics, A*STAR, 11 Science Park Road, Singapore, 117685, Singapore. wangc@ime.a-star.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: University 2020 Foundation, Northborough, MA, USA. d.ghista@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Dhanjoo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ghista
authors.affiliation: National Heart Research Institute Singapore, National Heart Centre Singapore, 5 Hospital Drive, Singapore, 169609, Singapore. zhong.liang@nhcs.com.sg.|Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, 8 College Road, Singapore, 169857, Singapore. zhong.liang@nhcs.com.sg.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhong
mesh_terms: D055615:Electrical Equipment and Supplies; D006347:Heart Sounds; D006801:Humans; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D000068997:Smartphone; D019023:Stethoscopes