Mobile phone-based rheumatic heart disease diagnosis

It is estimated that between 15.6 and 19.6 million people are living with rheumatic heart disease (RHD) worldwide, accounting for about one million deaths annually and 60% of Africa's open heart surgeries. As RHD results in heart murmurs that are almost always audible during auscultation, a mobile phone-based automatic auscultation device has the potential to identify those individuals with a high risk of having RHD. Such a device would allow cost-effective treatment while not requiring expert training or expensive equipment. This paper addresses two of the major steps when processing heart sounds recordings using such a device: signal quality classification, which achieved over 90% accuracy, and heart sound segmentation, with 93.5% F₁ score. Future steps required to develop a fully automatic device are then discussed.