Patent ID: 7672716

Claim:
A method for detecting an increased risk of dilated cardiomyopathy within a patient for use by an implantable medical device for implant within the patient, the method comprising: detecting values representative of both QT duration and QT dispersion within the patient using the implantable medical device; generating a QT dispersion histogram (H QT-dispersion ) based on a plurality of QT dispersion values detected over one day; generating a QT duration histogram (H QT-duration ) based on a plurality of QT duration values detected over one day; and calculating a QT dispersion daily mean and a QT duration daily mean using the histograms calculating an index (QT INDEX ) representative of an amount of deviation in QT duration and in QT dispersion values from their respective daily means as follows: subtracting the QT dispersion daily mean from each bin value in the QT dispersion histogram (H QT-dispersion ); subtracting the QT duration daily mean from each bin value in the QT duration histogram (H QT-duration ) and multiplying each of the bin values in the QT duration histogram (H QT-duration ) by a corresponding QT duration histogram (H QT-duration ) bin count; and subtracting the QT dispersion daily mean from each bin value in the QT dispersion histogram (H QT-dispersion ) and multiplying each of the bin values in the QT dispersion histogram (H QT-dispersion ) by a corresponding QT dispersion histogram (H QT-dispersion ) bin count; and combining the amount of deviation and dispersion to yield the index value (QT INDEX ); and detecting an increased risk of dilated cardiomyopathy within the patient by comparing the index (QT INDEX ) against a threshold (DC THRESHOLD ) indicative of dilated cardiomyopathy.