Reduction of Heart Sounds from Lung Sounds by Adaptive Filterng

Auscultation of the chest is an attractive diagnostic method used by physicians, owing to its simplicity and noninvasiveness. Hence, there is interest in lung sound analysis using time and frequency domain techniques to increase its usefulness in diagnosis. The sounds recorded or heard are, however, contaminated by incessant heart sounds which interfere in the diagnosis based on, and analysis of, lung sounds. A common method to minimize the effect of heart sounds is to filter the sound with linear high-pass filters which, however, also eliminates the overlapping spectrum of breath sounds. In this work we show how adaptive filtering can be used to reduce heart sounds without significantly affecting breath sounds. The technique is found to reduce the heart sounds by 50¿80 percent.