PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF ECG COMPRESSION ALGORITHMS BY RECONSTRUCTION ERROR AND DIAGNOSTIC RESPONSE

An electrocardiogram (ECG) data compression algorithm using a polygona l approximation and the template beat variation method (TBV) has been evaluated by reconstruction error and automatic interpretation. The al gorithm combining SAPA3 with TBV (SAPA3/TBV) has superior compression performance in PRD and compression ratio. The reconstruction errors, d efined as the difference of the amplitude and the time duration betwee n the original ECG and the reconstructed one, are large at waves with small amplitude and/or gradual slopes such as the P wave. Tracing rebu ilt from the compressed ECG has been analysed using the automatic inte rpretative program, and the diagnostic answers with the related measur ements have been compared with the results obtained on the original EC G. The data compression algorithms (SAPA3 and SAPA3/TBV) have been tes ted on 100 cases in the data base produced by CSE. The reconstruction errors are related to the diagnostic errors. The TBV method suppresses these errors and more than 90% of diagnostic agreements at the error limit of 15 mu V can be obtained.