Comparative Effectiveness of ICA and PCA in Extraction of Fetal ECG From Abdominal Signals: Toward Non-invasive Fetal Monitoring

Frontiers in Physiology

Radana Kahankova¹  Rene Jaros¹  Radek Martinek¹  Homer Nazeran²  Jitka Mohylova³  Petr Janku⁴  Marcel Fajkus⁵  Jan Nedoma⁵  Janusz Jezewski⁶ 

[1] Department of Cybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas El Paso, El Paso, TX, United States;Department of General Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia;Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Masaryk University and University Hospital Brno, Brno, Czechia;Department of Telecommunications, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia;Institute of Medical Technology and Equipment ITAM, Zabrze, Poland;

关键词: electronic fetal monitoring (EFM);    fetal electrocardiogram (fECG);    non-invasive fetal heart rate (NI-fHR) estimation;    non-invasive fetal ECG (NI-fECG);    nonadaptive methods;    independent component analysis (ICA);   

DOI  :  10.3389/fphys.2018.00648

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Non-adaptive signal processing methods have been successfully applied to extract fetal electrocardiograms (fECGs) from maternal abdominal electrocardiograms (aECGs); and initial tests to evaluate the efficacy of these methods have been carried out by using synthetic data. Nevertheless, performance evaluation of such methods using real data is a much more challenging task and has neither been fully undertaken nor reported in the literature. Therefore, in this investigation, we aimed to compare the effectiveness of two popular non-adaptive methods (the ICA and PCA) to explore the non-invasive (NI) extraction (separation) of fECGs, also known as NI-fECGs from aECGs. The performance of these well-known methods was enhanced by an adaptive algorithm, compensating amplitude difference and time shift between the estimated components. We used real signals compiled in 12 recordings (real01–real12). Five of the recordings were from the publicly available database (PhysioNet-Abdominal and Direct Fetal Electrocardiogram Database), which included data recorded by multiple abdominal electrodes. Seven more recordings were acquired by measurements performed at the Institute of Medical Technology and Equipment, Zabrze, Poland. Therefore, in total we used 60 min of data (i.e., around 88,000 R waves) for our experiments. This dataset covers different gestational ages, fetal positions, fetal positions, maternal body mass indices (BMI), etc. Such a unique heterogeneous dataset of sufficient length combining continuous Fetal Scalp Electrode (FSE) acquired and abdominal ECG recordings allows for robust testing of the applied ICA and PCA methods. The performance of these signal separation methods was then comprehensively evaluated by comparing the fetal Heart Rate (fHR) values determined from the extracted fECGs with those calculated from the fECG signals recorded directly by means of a reference FSE. Additionally, we tested the possibility of non-invasive ST analysis (NI-STAN) by determining the T/QRS ratio. Our results demonstrated that even though these advanced signal processing methods are suitable for the non-invasive estimation and monitoring of the fHR information from maternal aECG signals, their utility for further morphological analysis of the extracted fECG signals remains questionable and warrants further work.

【 授权许可】

Unknown