Patent ID: 8880159

Claim:
A method for analyzing ECG measurements obtained from a patient to determine a patient risk factor corresponding to a level of risk of the patient experiencing a subsequent cardiac event, the method comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining orthogonal ECG measurements of a patient with 3D ECG measuring equipment; and (b) providing the obtained ECG measurements to ECG analysis equipment that receives the ECG measurements, performs an ECG analysis, and provides ECG analysis results in a user readable format; wherein the ECG analysis includes determining at least one cardiac event risk factor having a value, the at least one cardiac event risk factor being determinable from one or more cardiac vector values selected from: sum magnitude of absolute QRST integral (SAI QRST), R/T peaks volume, spatial QRST angle, T-T′ angles, R-R′ angles, T-axes amplitudes, R-axes amplitudes, QRS loops areas, T loops areas, beat-to-beat variability in sum magnitude of absolute QRST integral (SAI QRST), beat-to-beat variability in R/T peaks volume, beat-to-beat variability in spatial QRST angle, beat-to-beat variability in T-T′ angles, beat-to-beat variability in R-R′ angles, beat-to-beat variability in T-axes amplitudes, beat-to-beat variability in R-axes amplitudes, beat-to-beat variability in QRS loops areas, and beat-to-beat variability in T loops areas, wherein the ECG measurement equipment includes a surface ECG instrument and the ECG measurements are expressed as three lead orthogonal ECG data or the ECG measurement equipment includes an intracardiac electrogram instrument, and wherein the cardiac event risk factor is a SAI QRST that is determined by plotting a QRST curve for each lead of the expressed three lead orthogonal ECG data or for the ECG measurements, and calculated via the total sum of the absolute areas under the QRST curve for each of the three leads or the intracardiac electrogram instrument.