Golden Standard or Obsolete Method? Review of ECG Applications in Clinical and Experimental Context

Abstract

Cardiovascular system and its functions under both physiological and pathophysiological conditions have been studied for centuries. One of the most important steps in the cardiovascular research was the possibility to record cardiac electrical activity. Since then, numerous modifications and improvements have been introduced; however, an electrocardiogram still represents a golden standard in this field. This paper overviews possibilities of ECG recordings in research and clinical practice, deals with advantages and disadvantages of various approaches, and summarizes possibilities of advanced data analysis. Special emphasis is given to state-of-the-art deep learning techniques intensely expanded in a wide range of clinical applications and offering promising prospects in experimental branches. Since, according to the World Health Organization, cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of death worldwide, studying electrical activity of the heart is still of high importance for both experimental and clinical cardiology.

A Balanced OTA ECG Amplifier and Its Development Directions

“…The ECG signals of the MIT-BIH heart rate anomaly database and the noise pressure test database are used for simulation experiments. The results show that the method improves the compression rate and helps to reduce transmission power consumption [5].…”

Medical Applications of Nonadditive Entropies

“…To this end, many powerful automated techniques and methodologies for ECG signal analysis have been reported to date in the literature (see e.g. [ 14 , 15 ]; for recent reviews, see [ 16 , 17 ] and references therein). Most advanced methods, in particular, utilise modern artificial intelligence approaches enabling rapid human-like interpretation of the ECG recordings capable of recognising subtle patterns and details in the ECG signals typically inaccessible by human interpreters [ 18 , 19 , 20 ].…”

Sixty years of the Bruce protocol: reappraising the contemporary role of exercise stress testing with electrocardiographic monitoring

“…[12][13][14][15][16] This concept has since been incorporated in other methodologies such as heart rhythm monitoring and the assessment of the cardiac response to exercise, with technological developments allowing for novel insights. 15,17,18 Notably, already in the early days of its use, the electrocardiographic response to exercise was a focus of interest. [19][20][21] Since these first descriptions, different protocols were applied to provide a dynamic overview of the cardiovascular system during exercise.…”