Your own virtual heart for non-invasive heart diagnostics
EPFL mathematician Alfio Quarteroni and his team are building a virtual heart model based on personalized medical images that may one day help cardiologists and cardiac surgeons non-invasively diagnose pathological heart conditions. The team recently modeled and simulated the behavior of a patientā??s aortic valve. One day, a virtual version of your own heart pumping may help doctors diagnose heart disease and determine the best treatment for you, without the need of surgical intervention or other invasive clinical practices. EPFL mathematician Alfio Quarteroniā??s goal is precisely this as he builds mathematical tools to simulate heart function with increasing accuracy and that can be personalized to your heart based on medical scans. He recently added the behavior of a patient-specific aortic valve to his overall functioning heart model. The results are published June 7th in Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology . A personalized virtual heart for preventing cardiovascular disease The human heart is an extraordinarily complex organ that pumps an estimated 180 million liters of blood, which would fill more than seven Olympic-sized swimming pools in oneā??s lifetime, thereby ensuring that oxygenated blood reaches the entire body.
