The effect of averaging cardiac Doppler spectrograms on the reduction of their amplitude variability

The effect of averaging cardiac Doppler spectrograms on the reduction of their amplitude variability was investigated in 30 patients. Beat-to-beat variations in the amplitude of Doppler spectrograms were also analysed. The quantification of amplitude variability was based on the computation of the area under the absolute value of the derivative function of each spectrum composing mean spectrograms. Fast Fourier transform using a Hanning window was used to compute Doppler spectra. Results obtained over systolic and diastolic periods showed that the reduction of amplitude variability followed an exponentially decreasing curve characterised by the equation f(r)=100e^−β(r−1), where r is the number of cardiac cycles, β the exponentially decreasing rate, and 100 the normalised variability for r=1. In systole, the decreasing rate β was 0·165, whereas in diastole it was 0·225. Reductions of the variability in systole for a number of cardiac cycles of 5, 10, 15, and 20 were 48, 77, 90 and 96 per cent, respectively. In diastole, reductions of the variability for the same numbers of cardiac cycles were 59, 87, 96 and 99 per cent, respectively. Based on these results, it can be concluded that no significant improvement in the reduction of amplitude variability may be obtained by averaging more than 20 cardiac cycles.