Evaluation of pediatric electrocardiogram diagnosis of ventricular hypertrophy by computer program compared with cardiologists

This study aimed to evaluate the diagnosis of pediatric left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH) by the Glasgow electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation program compared to interpretations provided by two pediatric cardiologists. ECGs had all identifying information r...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pediatric cardiology 2005-08, Vol.26 (4), p.373-378
Main Authors: Hamilton, R M, Houston, A B, McLeod, K, Macfarlane, P W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Care and treatment
Child
Child, Preschool
Diagnosis
Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted - methods
Electrocardiogram
Electrocardiography
Evaluation
Heart enlargement
Humans
Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular - diagnosis
Hypertrophy, Right Ventricular - diagnosis
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Observer Variation
Software
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study aimed to evaluate the diagnosis of pediatric left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH) by the Glasgow electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation program compared to interpretations provided by two pediatric cardiologists. ECGs had all identifying information removed and were sent to the cardiologists independently with the patient's age and sex and the clinical indication for the ECG, if known. A total of 984 ECGs were included in the study, of which 664 were reported "with clinical indication" and 320 were reported "blind." With respect to an averaged diagnosis of the two cardiologists, the sensitivity of the program for RVH was better when the cardiologists reported blind (73.3%) than with the clinical indication (53.5%), with the same trend for the program compared with individual cardiologists. The specificity of the program was at least 94.4% in all cases. For LVH, the program had high specificity (=95.8%) for "reported blind" and "with clinical indication" cases but low sensitivities throughout (the highest was 44.4% with respect to an averaged diagnosis of the two cardiologists reporting with the clinical indication). Subsequent discussion revealed that if the cardiologists had disagreed with one another initially, their consensus opinion was twice as likely to be in agreement with the program.
ISSN:0172-0643
1432-1971
DOI:10.1007/s00246-004-0748-8