Simple and effective signal processing pinpointing subtle premature ventricular contractions inferred from increasing physical effort

Premature ventricular contractions (PVC), or extrasystoles, represent a type of cardiac arrhythmia that is common among the general population and, notably, among athletes or individuals who exercise frequently. PVC may be asymptomatic and not clinically relevant when their rate is low, up to around 0.5%, or may be symptomatic and clinically relevant when it is high, in the order of or above 10%. ECG analysis in association with a cardiac stress test is important to detect and characterize PVC and to diagnose the heart condition and operation. In this paper, we describe and test a simple signal processing approach that can be used to effectively pinpoint subtle PVC occurrences in various physical effort conditions. In this regard, we discuss i) three important conditions to be met such that PVC are categorized as benign, ii) the design and implementation of a cardiac stress test and ECG data collection, iii) the algorithm analyzing and extracting information from the detected PVC occurrences, and iv) we present and discuss the obtained results, and conclude on their significance.