Seminar

Medical Physics Seminar – Monday, April 15, 2013

Detection of Fetal Cardiac Repolarization Abnormalities using Magnetocardiography

Suhong Yu (student of Dr. Ronald Wakai)
Research Assistant, Department of Medical Physics, UW-School of Medicine & Public Health, Madison, WI - USA –

Abnormal cardiac repolarization, which manifests as T-wave abnormalities on the electrocardiogram and magnetocaridogram, is strongly associated with channelopathies, cardiomyopathies, and sudden death at all ages, including infancy, i.e. sudden infant death syndrome. T-wave abnormalities such as T-wave prolongation and T-wave alternans (TWA) are ominous because they increase the risk of lethal ventricular tachycardias.

Repolarization abnormalities have not been extensively studied in the fetus because the fetal ECG is difficult to record during pregnancy and it is not detectable in ultrasound. Fetal MCG (fMCG) shows important advantages over other techniques for assessment of fetal rhythm, including the ability to assess repolarization; however, T-waves are often difficult to resolve because they are diffuse and have low amplitude. In addition, the occasional presence of U-wave makes the termination of the T-waves ambiguous, confounding measurement of the QT interval.

The goal of my research is to combine technical improvements with patient studies in order to increase the signal resolution and the accuracy of fMCG for detection of T-wave abnormalities.

Location: 1335 (HSLC) Health Sciences Learning Center, 750 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI

Time: 4:00pm-5:00pm