[ Research ]
Since 1960's obstetricians have been using cardiotocography (CTG) to detect ongoing hypoxia of the fetus. CTG consists of fetal heart rate (fHR) and uterine contractions (TOCO) signals. The evaluation of the fHR in clinical settings is ruled by FIGO guidelines based on evaluation of macroscopic morphological features derived from the fHR, such as baseline variability and its relation to the TOCO. Although upgrades to the guidelines were proposed - none of them is taking into account results achieved within the adult heart rate variability (HRV) research.
In our current work we focus on:
- Expert (subjective) evaluation of CTG recordings and its dependance on additional information
- Assesment of inter- and intra-observer variability of feature detection and CTG evaluation
- Objective evaluation/classification of CTG recordings using the values of pH from the umbilical artery
- Development of intelligent data-acquisition platform for delivery ward
- Statistical analysis of "big-data" from obstetrics information system
- Case-based reasoning for delivery support system
- Combination of heterogenous data - CTG recording, clinical information and partogram
- Feature extraction (search for new, but reliable and interpretable feature)
- Classification
- Data collection and analysis
- New markers of hypoxia (miRNA and mRNA)
- Decission support systems
- mCTG - mobile approach to CTG collection and analysis