Magnetocardiography at the Turn of the Millenium

Abstract

In 1963 Baule and McFee used an induction coil to measure magnetic signals produced by the human heart (1). The technique of super conducting technology in a specially shielded room was introduced in 1970 by Cohen and co-workers (2) and further described in 1974 by Lepeschkin (3). The next improvement was the development of gradiometric detection coils that allowed MCG recordings in unshielded laboratories (4–8). In 1974 Siltanen (9) described the current MCG lead system, a standard grid and the normal MCG pattern. Recordings of the His-Purkinje-system by magnetocardiography from body surface were first reported by Farrell in 1978 (10), and ventricular late fields as correlates to ventricular late potentials by Erné in 1983 (11). In 1985 the first three-dimensional localization of abnormal cardiac microfields by MCG was described by Erné (12). Since 1983 isofield contour maps for imaging the magnetic field distribution during cardiac de- and repolarisation have been used routinely (12, 13, 14). In general, among the the pioneers of magnetocardiography the names of Katila (15), Awano (8), Cohen (2), Siltanen (9), Fenici (13), Romani (16) and Erné (11, 12) have to be mentioned in particular, because they have contributed significantly to the technical development and clinical application of modern magnetocardiography.