RESEARCH ARTICLE


Noninvasive Fetal Electrocardiography Part I: Pan-Tompkins' Algorithm Adaptation to Fetal R-peak Identification



Angela Agostinelli, Ilaria Marcantoni, Elisa Moretti, Agnese Sbrollini, Sandro Fioretti, Francesco Di Nardo, Laura Burattini*
Department of Information Engineering, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy


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Creative Commons License
© 2017 Agostinelli et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Information Engineering, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy; Tel: (39) 071 220 4461; Fax: (39) 071 220 4224; E-mail: l.burattini@univpm.it


Abstract

Background:

Indirect fetal electrocardiography is preferable to direct fetal electrocardiography because of being noninvasive and is applicable also during the end of pregnancy, besides labor. Still, the former is strongly affected by noise so that even R-peak detection (which is essential for fetal heart-rate evaluations and subsequent processing procedures) is challenging. Some fetal studies have applied the Pan-Tompkins’ algorithm that, however, was originally designed for adult applications. Thus, this work evaluated the Pan-Tompkins’ algorithm suitability for fetal applications, and proposed fetal adjustments and optimizations to improve it.

Method:

Both Pan-Tompkins’ algorithm and its improved version were applied to the “Abdominal and Direct Fetal Electrocardiogram Database” and to the “Noninvasive Fetal Electrocardiography Database” of Physionet. R-peak detection accuracy was quantified by computation of positive-predictive value, sensitivity and F1 score.

Results:

When applied to “Abdominal and Direct Fetal Electrocardiogram Database”, the accuracy of the improved fetal Pan-Tompkins’ algorithm was significantly higher than the standard (positive-predictive value: 0.94 vs. 0.79; sensitivity: 0.95 vs. 0.80; F1 score: 0.94 vs. 0.79; P<0.05 in all cases) on indirect fetal electrocardiograms, whereas both methods performed similarly on direct fetal electrocardiograms (positive-predictive value, sensitivity and F1 score all close to 1). Improved fetal Pan-Tompkins’ algorithm was found to be superior to the standard also when applied to “Noninvasive Fetal Electrocardiography Database” (positive-predictive value: 0.68 vs. 0.55, P<0.05; sensitivity: 0.56 vs. 0.46, P=0.23; F1 score: 0.60 vs. 0.47, P=0.11).

Conclusion:

In indirect fetal electrocardiographic applications, improved fetal Pan-Tompkins’ algorithm is to be preferred over the standard, since it provides higher R-peak detection accuracy for heart-rate evaluations and subsequent processing.

Keywords: Abdominal fetal electrocardiography, Direct fetal electrocardiography, Digital electrocardiography, Fetal monitoring, Pan-Tompkins’ algorithm, R-peak detection.