Signal Statistics of Heart Sound Recordings: A Comparative Study Between Smartphones and Electronic Stethoscopes

Xinqi Bao*, Pablo Lamata, Ernest Kamavuako

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference paperpeer-review

Abstract

Smartphones possess the potential to become widely available stethoscopes for cardiac diagnosis due to their audio processing capabilities and widespread usage. However, the quality of signals collected by phones should be characterised and compared to the signals collected by clinical stethoscopes. To this ends, this study compares the characteristics of cardiac auscultation signals captured by either smartphones or electronic clinical stethoscopes on ten subjects. Results revealed that the electronic stethoscope captures sharper and cleaner signals than the smartphone (kurtosis of 29.381 ± 29.436 vs. 4.658 ± 4.301, P < 0.001), as well as a wider frequency response range (median frequency 64.60 ± 16.65 Hz vs. 49.96 ± 11.05 Hz, P = 0.044). Besides, in the key frequency bands 1-3rd of the Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), the correlation coefficients show a diverse behaviour, with the 1st and 3rd being high (average 0.993 and 0.896), while the 2nd decreases to 0.428. This implies that the time-frequency domain features extracted from the two signal groups differ, and directly transferring a model trained on electronic stethoscope data to smartphones may result in suboptimal performance. These findings illustrate the clear distinctions between using smartphones and electronic stethoscopes for auscultation. The characteristics provide valuable insights for signal quality metrics to enhance the accuracy in identifying cardiac issues and the feasibility of remote auscultation.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2024 IEEE 22nd Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference, MELECON 2024
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages1089-1094
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9798350387025
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024
Event22nd IEEE Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference, MELECON 2024 - Porto, Portugal
Duration: 25 Jun 202427 Jun 2024

Publication series

Name2024 IEEE 22nd Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference, MELECON 2024

Conference

Conference22nd IEEE Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference, MELECON 2024
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityPorto
Period25/06/202427/06/2024

Keywords

  • Electronic Stethoscope
  • Heart sound
  • Signal statistics
  • Smartphone

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Signal Statistics of Heart Sound Recordings: A Comparative Study Between Smartphones and Electronic Stethoscopes'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this