Machine learning-based left ventricular hypertrophy detection using multi-lead ECG signal

This work proposes a novel method for the detection of Left Ventricular Hypertrophy (LVH) from a multi-lead ECG signal. Left Ventricle walls become thick due to prolonged hypertension which may fail to pump heart effectively. The imaging techniques can be used as an alternative diagnose LVH; however, they are more expensive and time-consuming than proposed LVH. To overcome this issue, an algorithm to the diagnosis of LVH using ECG signal based on machine learning techniques were designed. In LVH detection, the pathological attributes such as R wave, S wave, inversion of QRS complex, changes in ST segment noticed in the ECG signal. This clinical information extracted as a feature by applying continuous wavelet transform. The signals were reconstructed with the frequency between 10 and 50 Hz from the wavelet. This followed by the detection of R wave and S wave peaks to obtain the relevant LVH diagnostic features. The Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Ensemble of Bagged Tree, AdaBoost classifiers were employed and the results are compared with four neural network classifiers including Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Scaled Conjugate Gradient Backpropagation Neural Network (SCG NN), Levenberg–Marquardt Neural Network (LMNN) and Resilient Backpropagation Neural network (RPROP). The data source includes Left Ventricular Hypertrophy and healthy ECG signal from PTB diagnostic ECG database and St Petersburg INCART 12-Lead Arrhythmia Database. The results revealed that the proposed work can diagnose LVH successfully using neural network classifiers. The accuracy in detecting LVH is 86.6%, 84.4%, 93.3%,75.6%, 95.6%, 97.8%, 97.8%, 88.9% using SVM, KNN, Ensemble of Bagged Tree, AdaBoost, MLP, SCG NN, LMNN and RPROP classifiers, respectively.