Analysing bipolar ECG implant’s specificity to 12 segments of left ventricle

New heart monitoring devices such as implantable ECG recorders may provide effective ways to monitor specifically certain heart region, e.g. ischemic region. Previously we have developed and presented the region of interest sensitivity ratio (ROISR) parameter to describe how specific a measurement is to the activation arisen the ROI compared to other source regions. Present study demonstrates the applicability of ROISR in analyzing the specificity of an implanted bipolar ECG monitor. Sensitivity distributions of the implanted ECG system at six locations were calculated in a realistic model of a human thorax. These were applied in calculation of ROISRs for 12 different ROIs of the left ventricle. The results indicate that some of the tested locations provide high specificity to an individual ROI but some have high specificity to number of ROIs. The study demonstrates that the ROISR analyzing method is effective when studying the capabilities of ECG implants to measure certain heart areas.