A convolutional neural network approach to detect congestive heart failure

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is a severe pathophysiological condition associated with high prevalence, high mortality rates, and sustained healthcare costs, therefore demanding efficient methods for its detection. Despite recent research has provided methods focused on advanced signal processing and machine learning, the potential of applying Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) approaches to the automatic detection of CHF has been largely overlooked thus far. This study addresses this important gap by presenting a CNN model that accurately identifies CHF on the basis of one raw electrocardiogram (ECG) heartbeat only, also juxtaposing existing methods typically grounded on Heart Rate Variability. We trained and tested the model on publicly available ECG datasets, comprising a total of 490,505 heartbeats, to achieve 100% CHF detection accuracy. Importantly, the model also identifies those heartbeat sequences and ECG's morphological characteristics which are class-discriminative and thus prominent for CHF detection. Overall, our contribution substantially advances the current methodology for detecting CHF and caters to clinical practitioners’ needs by providing an accurate and fully transparent tool to support decisions concerning CHF detection.