Development of auto-diagnostic electrocardiograph for dogs

Development of an autodiagnostic electrocardiograph for canine use has apparently not been published to date, and there is no such product on the market. In the present study, modification of the conventional canine autoanalyzing electrocardiograph was tried with the purpose of performing computer assisted ECG diagnosis for dogs. Model 503 FB-D (Fukuda M-E Kogyo Co., Ltd.) of autoanalyzing electrocardiograph was used for the modification study. The system consisted of a Model 8086 computer as the CPU with 80 and 128 Kb memories, ECG amplifier, R wave detecter, A/D converter, ECG recorder, LED display, thermal printer and floppy disk drive. ECG and measurement data are recorded continuously for 10 to 20 sec as the database for analysis of heart rate, PR interval, QRS duration, QT interval, all the P, Q, R, S and T waves, ST segment and VAT time from each lead. These values were then used to calculate the QTc and QRS electric axes and VAT time. The above data were then used for diagnosis of abnormal ECG patterns and to analyze arrhythmia of dogs. The accuracy of this improved system was assessed by using 200 cases with abnormal ECG findings. The results suggested that the modified model 503 FB-D autodiagnostic ECG with the computer program, might be practically applicable to canine medicine.