The Influence of Stochastic Organ Conductivity in 2D ECG Forward Modeling: A Stochastic Finite Element Study

Quantification of the sensitivity of the electro-cardiographic forward problem to various parameters can effectively direct the generalization of patient specific models without significant loss in accuracy. To this purpose we applied polynomial chaos based stochastic finite elements to assess the effect of variations in the distributions of tissue conductivity in a two-dimensional torso geometry generated from MRI scans and epicardial boundary conditions specified by intra-operatively recorded heart potentials. The polynomial chaos methodology allows sensitivity analysis of this type to be done in a fraction of the time required for a Monte Carlo analysis