Estimation algorithm of the bowel motility based on regression analysis of the jitter and shimmer of bowel sounds

Bowel sound (BS) signals can be used clinically as useful indicators of bowel motility. In this study, we devised a modified iterative kurtosis-based detector algorithm, in order to enhance the de-noising performance of BS signals, and an estimation algorithm of bowel motility based on the regression modeling of the jitter and shimmer of BS signals obtained by auscultation. The correlation coefficient, coefficient of determination and errors between the colon transit times measured by a conventional radiograph and the corresponding values estimated by our method were 0.987, 0.974 and 3.5 ± 3.3 h, respectively. These results demonstrated that our method could be used as a complementary tool for the non-invasive diagnosis and monitoring of bowel motility, instead of conventional radiography.