Newcastle Medical Physics team win PhysioNet/Computers in Cardiology Challenge 2003

A team of researchers from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Freeman Hospital won the 2003 PhysioNet Computers in Cardiology Challenge for their work on computer detection of ischaemia from the electrocardiogram (ECG).

Ischaemia, when the heart muscle is starved of oxygen, is clinically very important and can indicate heart disease, such as coronary artery disease. Automated computer detection of the condition in ambulatory ECG recordings is very difficult because many of the daily activities undertaken by patients give characteristics on the ECG similar to those of ischaemia.

The Challenge, organised by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhysioNet, and Computers in Cardiology, is an annual event in which researchers from around the world compete to solve a specific research question.

The team from Newcastle (Philip Langley, Emma Bowers, Joanne Wild, Michael Drinnan, John Allen, Andrew Sims, Nigel Brown and Alan Murray) are members of the Cardiovascular Physics and Engineering Research Group from the Department of Medical Physics. The paper was presented by Philip and certificates and prize money were handed to representatives of the team at the Computers in Cardiology conference held in Thessaloniki, Greece.