Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a global health problem, which represents 15–20% of global deaths. This type of death can be due to different heart conditions, where ventricular fibrillation has been reported as the main one. These cardiac alterations can be seen in an electrocardiogram (ECG) record, where the heart’s electrical activity is altered. The present research uses these variations to be able to predict 30 min in advance when the SCD event will occur. In this regard, a methodology based on the complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition (CEEMD) method to decompose the cardiac signal into its intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and a convolutional neural network (CNN) for automatic diagnosis is proposed. Results for the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method and the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method are also compared. Results demonstrate that the combination of the CEEMD and the CNN is a potential solution for SCD prediction since 97.5% of accuracy is achieved up to 30 min in advance of the SCD event.

Cardiovascular diseases are among the major global health problems. For example, sudden cardiac death (SCD) accounts for approximately 4 million deaths worldwide. In particular, an SCD event can subtly change the electrocardiogram (ECG) signal before onset, which is generally undetectable by the patient. Hence, timely detection of these changes in ECG signals could help develop a tool to anticipate an SCD event and respond appropriately in patient care. In this sense, this work proposes a novel computational methodology that combines the maximal overlap discrete wavelet packet transform (MODWPT) with stacked autoencoders (SAEs) to discover suitable features in ECG signals and associate them with SCD prediction. The proposed method efficiently predicts an SCD event with an accuracy of 98.94% up to 30 min before the onset, making it a reliable tool for early detection while providing sufficient time for medical intervention and increasing the chances of preventing fatal outcomes, demonstrating the potential of integrating signal processing and deep learning techniques within computational biology to address life-critical health problems.