New clinical application of magnetocardiography: diagnosis of left ventricular hypertrophy.

INTRODUCTION

Magnetocardiography (MCG), as a high-sensitivity, non-contact and non-invasive technology, is assumed to detect weak electrophysiological changes. MCG can detect early signs of myocardial ischemia that may be missed by other diagnostic tools. Present research aims to evaluate the possibility of using MCG to detect left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH).

METHODS

The study included 481 participants, categorized into two groups according to echocardiographic criteria: the LVH group and the non-LVH group. We evaluated the performance of the MCG-derived diagnostic model for detecting LVH in the retrospective cohort and performed external validation in the prospective cohort. Using echocardiography as the reference standard, we assessed the model's area under the curve (AUC) value, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and accuracy.

RESULTS

MCG parameters (S + R, QRS area, QRS-T area, DM, TT_MA) were incorporated into a logistic regression model, which produced an AUC of 0.844 (95% CI: 0.792-0.895) for the retrospective cohort. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and accuracy were 72.2%, 85.8%, 67.3%, 88.4%, and 81.9%. In the prospective cohort, the model exhibited an AUC of 0.782 (95% CI: 0.697-0.866), and the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and accuracy were 63.6%, 86.5%, 74.5%, 79.4%, and 77.8%, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Besides myocardial ischemia, MCG also provides useful information suggestive of LVH.