RU2122346C1 - Method for virtual electrography - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: medical diagnostics, in particular, electrocardiography. SUBSTANCE: method involves application of few electrodes on patient's skin in form of three-dimensional body which embraces organ under investigation. Stereo image of virtual geometric body which incorporates virtual surface of organ under investigation is displayed on computer screen using special spectacles. Then method involves selection of required number of virtual points, which are used for calculation of virtual electrograms, using virtual marker on virtual surface of organ under investigation, and storing real-time curves of virtual electrograms. EFFECT: increased precision, fidelity and information capacity, simplified and fast diagnostics due to vast amount of information processed by computer. 3 dwg

Description

 The invention relates to medical diagnostics for conducting electrographic examinations of patients.

 In medicine, electrographic examinations are widely used - electrocardiography, electroencephalography, electromyography, etc.

 A known method for the diagnosis of heart disease, in which the potential difference is recorded between the active electrode installed at certain points on the surface of the chest (6 chest leads) and the combined electrode (Wilson), formed by connecting through additional resistance of 3 limbs - the right hand, left arms and left legs (V.V. Murashko, A.V. Strutinsky. Electrocardiography. M: Medicine, 1987, p. 44-47).

 The specified method when using additional V7, V8 and V9 leads allows the diagnosis of myocardial diseases, but only at the points used as leads and only from the surface of the chest.

 Known methods using 2-pole chest leads that capture the potential difference between points located on the surface of the chest. To record 3 leads (according to the Neb), three electrodes are placed - one along the 2nd intercostal space on the right edge of the sternum, the other at the apex of the heart, and the third along the back axillary line.

 The above leads are used to diagnose focal changes in the myocardium: the posterior wall (lead D), the anterolateral wall (lead A) and the upper sections of the anterior wall (lead G). This method is also in the diagnosis of focal myocardial changes uninformative. (V.V. Murashko, A.V. Strutinsky. Electrocardiography. M: Medicine, 1987, p. 47).

 More informative than the previous methods is the method of registering a precordial cartogram (Maroko et al. ZZ Dorofeeva, GV Ryabykina) at 35 points on the front and side surfaces of the chest.

 The electrodes are installed in 5 horizontal rows of 7 electrodes in each row (VV Murashko, AV Strutinsky. Electrocardiography. M .: Medicine, 1987). The resulting plexus of wires and a complex switching system make the practical use of this method difficult.

 All of the above methods for taking a multi-point electrocardiogram are implemented using commercially available electrocardiographs and are of varying degrees of difficulty switching devices with visualization of the ECG curve (electrocardiogram) on paper or on the screen of a video monitor, and all implement a projection of the heart biopotential vector on one side of the triangle Einthoven (N.M. Liventsev. Physics course, part IV, Moscow: Higher School, 1978, p. 121-140), i.e. are flat.

 None of the existing methods allows for the removal of biopotential in real time from the internal structures of a living organ without violating the integrity of body tissues by non-destructive testing.

 The technical result of the invention consists in removing the electrical potential that is formed when the biological structure (organ) is functioning with a high degree of reliability of the taken biopotentials, and not from one plane, but from a specific point (s) in the volume of the biological structure without violating the integrity of the living organism.

 This is achieved by the fact that electrodes are applied to the patient’s skin in the form of a three-dimensional geometric figure enclosing the organ under examination.

 The method is as follows. Consider the simplest method using an electrocardiogram as an example, which requires only 4 electrodes to complete the task. Three electrodes are placed on the front and one electrode on the back of the patient’s chest. The geometric figure formed by the geometrical figure superimposed on the patient’s skin - an equilateral pyramid (tetrahedron), the vertices of which are electrodes superimposed on the patient’s skin, contains the organ under examination, for example, the heart.

 An equilateral pyramid is displayed on the computer video terminal in the form of a geometric figure (tetrahedron), which can be seen as voluminous as in stereo cinema.

 In this case, we use the method of forming two monochrome images (stereo pairs), which when observed through glasses with special filters (for example, red for the left eye and blue for the right) create a sense of volume).

 Using the electronic marker - a virtual electrode - inside or outside the virtual tetrahedron, the required number of virtual points are selected under the supervision of the researcher, from which it is necessary to take ECG leads, for example 120 points in 1 mm increments, and then the process of calculating the virtual electrocardiogram is started.

 The computer in real time calculates the ECG curves at the selected virtual points, for example, on the surface of a sphere that is located around the virtual tetrahedron and contains the organ under examination - the heart, accumulates information in its memory, and, at the request of the user, displays this information on the screen of the video terminal (or prints on paper) in the form of an ECG curve (see Fig. 1), including volumetric (see Fig. 2), graphs, charts, or any other mathematical calculations set by the researcher.

 To increase the accuracy of diagnosis, a virtual electrocardiogram can be taken simultaneously with an ultrasound section of the investigated organ - the heart.

 Using the method allows you to remove, in this case, an electrocardiogram, using only 4 electrodes by any currently known methods, including from the deep structures of the body. To increase the accuracy of measurements, the number of electrodes can be increased at the request of the researcher and form any three-dimensional figure.

 We give an example of a real-time ECG curve in standard electrocardiographic leads - I, II, III, AVR, AVL, AVF and in one of the chest leads V (see Fig. 3).

 The advantage of this method is the possibility of simultaneous real-time removal of a large number of ECG leads from any deep structure of the organ under examination and the flexibility of transition from one ECG method to another.

 The user does not need additional special knowledge, since the entire process of mathematical calculations is performed by a computer without human intervention.

Claims (1)

 The method of virtual electrography, which consists in applying electrodes to the surface of the patient’s body and removing biopotentials from them, characterized in that the application of electrodes is carried out around the organ being examined with the formation of a three-dimensional geometric figure around the organ being examined, on the surface of the sphere around which and inside it using an electronic marker select the required number of virtual points from which biopotentials are taken in real time in the form of virtual flat and volumetric curves.

Images