ECG – Workhorse Cardiac Assessment Tool

ECG – Workhorse Cardiac Assessment Tool

The electrocardiogram (ECG or sometimes called EKG) is a record of the heart's electrical activity obtained from a standard set of body surface electrodes and presented to the physician as the "12-lead ECG": that is, 12 independent graphs of voltage vs. time as obtained from the electrodes (Fig 1).

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Fig 1. Current ECG practice. Although cardiac activity is inherently 3-dimesional, the current ECG presents data in only 2 dimensions, resulting in loss of diagnostic information.

The ECG is the most widely used and invaluable clinical tool for the detection and diagnosis of a broad range of cardiac conditions, as well as a technique that has contributed to the understanding and treatment of virtually every type of heart disease. More than 7 million ECGs are performed the United States each year, making ECG the most commonly performed cardiovascular diagnostic test. The clinical utility of the ECG derives from its immediate availability as a noninvasive, inexpensive, and highly versatile test, one that may detect arrhythmia, heart muscle diseases, life-threatening metabolic disturbances, or increased susceptibility to sudden cardiac death. With improvements in treatment of acute myocardial infarction, an increasing amount of attention has been focused on the ECG's diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of the ECG. More than ever, there is a need for more accurate and timely forms of ECG information than currently exist.