Optimal ECG Electrode Sites and Criteria for Detection of Asymptomatic Coronary Artery Disease at Rest and with Exercise.
Abstract
Ten to 20% of all apparently healthy people over 35 have significant but undiagnosed coronary artery disease. For 15 to 30% of these people, sudden death is the first symptom of heart disease and as many as half of those who die have had a prior unrecognized infarct (heart attack). Applying these statistics to pilots, at least 1 pilot over 10,000 over the age of 35 who fly an annual average of 300 hours in high-performance aircraft will die each year at the controls resulting in loss of the aircraft. Based on published reports, the Air Force loses from 20 million to as much as 50 million dollars per year from aircraft lost this way. Furthermore, it follows that there are 10-15 unrecognized new infarcts per year per 10,000 of these same flyers. Improving the identification of coronary disease in these pilots would lower the number flying with unrecognized heart disease. This would decrease the chances of sudden death of pilots at the controls and reduce the number of aircraft lost. This report describes proposed enhancement of an existing computer model to improve ECG criteria and to define an optimal set of ECG electrodes for the identification of significant coronary artery disease with and without myocardial infarction. The ultimate goal is the development of a portable ECG Mapping Cart that can be used in flight surgeon's offices worldwide for resting and exercise ECGs to improve coronary artery disease detection and quantitation of infarct size in the asymptomatic pilot. Keywords: Electrocardiography, Computer forward model, Heart model, Body surface map, Exercise tolerance test, Coronary artery disease, Myocardial infarction, Myocardial Ishemia, Depolarization, Repolarization, Bayesian statistics.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1985
- Accession Number
- ADA166951
Entities
People
- Joseph C. Solomon
- Ronald H. Selvester
Organizations
- University of Southern California