Fetal electrocardiography and artificial intelligence for prenatal detection of congenital heart disease

IntroductionThis study aims to investigate non-invasive electrocardiography as a method for the detection of congenital heart disease (CHD) with the help of artificial intelligence. Material and methodsAn artificial neural network was trained for the identification of CHD using non-invasively obtained fetal electrocardiograms. With the help of a Bayesian updating rule, multiple electrocardiographs were used to increase the algorithm's performance. ResultsUsing 122 measurements containing 65 healthy and 57 CHD cases, the accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were found to be 71%, 63%, and 77%, respectively. The sensitivity was however 75% and 69% for CHD cases requiring an intervention in the neonatal period and first year of life, respectively. Furthermore, a positive effect of measurement length on the detection performance was observed, reaching optimal performance when using 14 electrocardiography segments (37.5 min) or more. A small negative trend between gestational age and accuracy was found. ConclusionsThe proposed method combining recent advances in obtaining non-invasive fetal electrocardiography with artificial intelligence for the automatic detection of CHD achieved a detection rate of 63% for all CHD and 75% for critical CHD. This feasibility study shows that detection rates of CHD might improve by using electrocardiography-based screening complementary to the standard ultrasound-based screening. More research is required to improve performance and determine the benefits to clinical practice.

Automated summary

This study investigates the use of non-invasive electrocardiography and artificial intelligence for the detection of congenital heart disease (CHD). An artificial neural network is trained to identify CHD using non-invasively obtained fetal electrocardiograms, with the help of a Bayesian updating rule. The results show that the proposed method achieves a detection rate of 63% for all CHD and 75% for critical CHD. The study suggests that electrocardiography-based screening may improve the detection rates of CHD and further research is needed to improve performance and determine its benefits in clinical practice.