What is HFQRS?

Welcome to HFQRS.ORG.  This site is dedicated to educating both professionals and the general public about the multiple potential uses of real-time High Frequency QRS electrocardiography, also know as HF QRS ECG.

Traditionally, changes in the ST-segment portion of the conventional ECG have been used for assessing myocardial ischemia and infarction. However, for several years, researchers have known that changes in the high-frequency, microvolt-level signals present within the central portion of the QRS complex of the signal-averaged ECG are more sensitive indicators of myocardial ischemia and infarction than changes in the ST-segment. These HF QRS ECG signals (especially those in the important 150-250 Hz range) are, unfortunately, presently filtered out by the hardware used in most present-day ECG machines.

Until recently, the HF QRS ECG technique has been utilized solely as a research tool, due in large part to its requirement for intensive offline signal processing.

In conjunction with laboratories at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, researchers at CardioSoft (www.CardioSoft.org) have recently developed a real-time 12-lead HF QRS electrocardiograph. This device allows clinicians, for the first time, to view and continuously monitor, in real time, changes in the HF QRS signals in each of the 12 conventional ECG leads, alongside of changes in the conventional 12-lead ECG signals themselves

The device combines CardioSoft's 12-lead PC ECG hardware and conventional ECG software with proprietary HF QRS ECG software invented at NASA and co-invented at CardioSoft. Clinical data collected to date show that the technology is useful not only for the enhanced, non-invasive detection of myocardial ischemia and infarction (i.e., compared to conventional ECG), but also for the non-invasive detection of coronary artery disease in asymptomatic individuals.  The HF QRS ECG technique may also be useful for detecting and managing various types of cardiomyopathy (heart failure).

The NASA/CardioSoft device is currently in investigational use, while under review by FDA for pre-market approval. The device is therefore presently available for research purposes only.

An educational, read-only version of CardioSoft's HF QRS Analysis Software for Windows is available free of charge upon request. If you are interested in evaluating the software, please e-mail info@cardiosoft.org and tell us who you are and what interests you about the software. We will then e-mail you a password to the download site. After you have received your password you can then download the program via the install link.