Multilead T-wave alternans quantification based on spatial filtering and the Laplacian likelihood ratio method

T-wave alternans (TWA) is considered as an index of susceptibility of sudden cardiac death. The Physionet/CinC challenge 2008 encourages teams to automatically detect and quantify the magnitude of TWA in every record of a given database. A reference ordering based on all entries submitted to the challenge is used for evaluation of algorithms. We participated in the challenge using a multilead analysis scheme that combines principal component analysis with the Laplacian likelihood ratio method. TWA was detected in 41 records, and a final score of 0.633 was obtained. In this study, the effect of several design parameters in the estimation of TWA amplitude is discussed, and the importance of measuring additional TWA parameters is emphasized.