Vidhya C M, Kumar Ghanshyam, Maithani Yogita, Duggal Bhanu, Singh J P
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, 110016, India.
Department of Cardiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, 249203, India.
Sci Rep. 2025 May 6;15(1):15799. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-95057-z.
Extensive research is being conducted in fabricating flexible dry electrodes for electrocardiogram monitoring, but the electrodes' efficacy in clinical settings remains underexplored. In transition from research to commercial settings, investigating the electrode's performance in real-time monitoring and patient's comfort is very crucial. This study compares the ECG signal quality between flexible silver nanorods embedded in polydimethylsiloxane (AgNRs-PDMS) dry electrodes and commercially available metal electrodes. This study, conducted in a hospital, involves 50 subjects (40 males, 10 females; age range: 20-74) among which 41 were with cardiovascular disease and 9 normal subjects. The fabricated dry electrodes are biocompatible and have a lower skin-to-electrode impedance than the commercial electrodes, resulting in high-fidelity ECG signals. Signal quality was assessed based on parameters such as signal-to-noise ratio, mean amplitude, maximum amplitude, power spectral density, and heart rate comparison. The AgNRs-PDMS electrodes demonstrated superior SNR, confirmed using a paired t-test, with a p-value close to 0, indicating a significant difference in comparison with commercial electrodes. The amplitude of ECG signals captured by AgNRs-PDMS electrodes and the heart rate were observed to be comparable to metal electrodes. For automated arrhythmia classification of the ECG signals, two models were implemented. The first model utilized R-R interval for arrhythmic rhythm classification, while the second model used principal component analysis (PCA) for dimensionality reduction followed by support vector machine (SVM) to classify arrhythmic beats. Large arrhythmia data sets like the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database were used for training and validating the above models. Accuracy results from the MIT-BIH test data set were 97% for the R-R interval method and 93% for the SVM method. The heart beats obtained from an arrhythmic patient using commercial metal electrodes and AgNRs-PDMS electrodes were classified using the classifiers. The AgNRs-PDMS dry electrodes offer superior signal quality, ease of use due to gel-free nature, and reusability, making them a promising alternative to commercial electrodes for clinical ECG monitoring.
目前正在进行大量关于制造用于心电图监测的柔性干电极的研究，但这些电极在临床环境中的功效仍未得到充分探索。在从研究向商业应用过渡的过程中，研究电极在实时监测中的性能以及患者的舒适度至关重要。本研究比较了嵌入聚二甲基硅氧烷（AgNRs-PDMS）的柔性银纳米棒干电极与市售金属电极之间的心电图信号质量。这项在医院进行的研究涉及50名受试者（40名男性，10名女性；年龄范围：20 - 74岁），其中41名患有心血管疾病，9名是正常受试者。所制造的干电极具有生物相容性，并且与商业电极相比具有更低的皮肤 - 电极阻抗，从而产生高保真的心电图信号。基于信噪比、平均幅度、最大幅度、功率谱密度和心率比较等参数评估信号质量。使用配对t检验证实，AgNRs-PDMS电极表现出卓越的信噪比，p值接近0，表明与商业电极相比存在显著差异。观察到AgNRs-PDMS电极捕获的心电图信号幅度和心率与金属电极相当。为了对心电图信号进行自动心律失常分类，实施了两种模型。第一个模型利用R - R间期进行心律失常节律分类，而第二个模型使用主成分分析（PCA）进行降维，随后使用支持向量机（SVM）对心律失常搏动进行分类。使用像麻省理工学院 - 贝斯以色列女执事医疗中心心律失常数据库这样的大型心律失常数据集来训练和验证上述模型。麻省理工学院 - 贝斯以色列女执事医疗中心测试数据集的准确率结果为：R - R间期方法为97%，支持向量机方法为93%。使用分类器对心律失常患者使用商业金属电极和AgNRs-PDMS电极获得的心跳进行分类。AgNRs-PDMS干电极具有卓越的信号质量、由于无凝胶性质而易于使用以及可重复使用性，使其成为临床心电图监测中商业电极的有前景的替代品。
