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My daughter was first fitted with a pacemaker when she was two years old. She needed it because of a congenital condition that causes the lower part of her heart to flow backwards. The result was electrical problems, reduced blood circulation efficiency of the heart, and a much shorter expected lifespan.
Because it was so rare, there was little guidance for the doctors managing her condition, as there was no way to predict how she would respond to treatment. The heart is a complex organ with many moving parts, and it differs from person to person. There are countless possibilities for unexpected problems, especially with children. This means that we often don’t have enough information to make data-driven decisions about unusual diseases.
As an engineer, I knew I needed a solution. I’ve seen how his advanced three-dimensional models, known as “virtual twins,” are helping airplane and car manufacturers test new and complex machines in digital simulation. I thought the heart was designed like a machine. It pumps blood in a regular pattern. It runs on electricity. Maybe I can help.
This realization led me to start the Living Heart Project over 10 years ago. Although it is possible to capture details of a person’s heart using medical imaging tools such as CT and MRI scans, the imaging is still incomplete.
So we assembled a team of experts to get a more accurate picture. Our coalition of engineers and doctors has jointly developed a method to create simulations of the hearts of living people. First, we created a general, “average” heart, and more recently, we have precisely modeled the heart of a specific individual, down to the smallest, most idiosyncratic details.
Although my daughter’s condition was one in a million, her predicament was not. Heart disease is consistently the leading cause of death in the United States and accounts for more healthcare costs than any other disease. The American Heart Association predicts that by 2035, 45% of Americans will have some form of heart disease.
Although heart disease is very common, it can be difficult to diagnose because the symptoms are similar to other illnesses, such as respiratory diseases. Research shows that heart failure patients are misdiagnosed 16% of the time in hospitals, and nearly 70% of the time when general practitioners refer patients to specialists. heart failure journal.
look inside your heart
However, when virtual twins are involved, the diagnostic landscape changes. The twins can be displayed on screen or in virtual reality as a three-dimensional model of him that can be enlarged, rotated and inspected by a team of experts. Doctors can “see” inside a patient’s heart, allowing it to pump under different conditions and identifying problems. It allows you to hear the heartbeat and observe the flow of blood and oxygen, all without patient intervention.
The virtual twins contain the necessary characteristics of each patient’s heart, allowing doctors to design complex reconstructions and safely test drugs and devices such as coronary stents on the twins. I can. This means that simulation can be used to help determine the best course of treatment.
In one case, Dr. David Hoganson of Boston Children’s Hospital came across an infant with a perplexing condition in which oxygen in the blood was only flowing from the heart to one lung. Hoganson and his team used a virtual twin heart to identify the problem, design and test a surgical procedure, and use it to save the child’s life. Since then, they have performed hundreds of additional surgeries using virtual twins.
Virtual twins are also a valuable educational tool to help students learn about the heart and other organs. It gives patients and their families an up-close look at what is happening, promoting understanding and hope during a frightening experience. And thanks to artificial intelligence and cloud services, one doctor’s insights can inform the work of other doctors around the world.
Today, the possibilities continue to expand. We are beginning to understand how to simulate other organs such as the lungs and brain. One day, we will be able to create full-body virtual twins, changing the way we manage our health. We are already working with the FDA to build virtual human subjects for early clinical trials, helping us get treatments to people who need them faster than ever before.
From validating the best location for medical devices to understanding how new drugs interact with living tissue, researchers are using virtual twins to improve patient clinical trials, much like they have for years. Tests that used to require 24 hours can now be conducted in a matter of days.
When I started this job, people wondered if I would trust my daughter’s life to this new technology. When she was first diagnosed, doctors had little confidence in their options to keep her heart working. They thought her heart would only last another 30 years. She is now 34 years old, but she is not slowing down. She is a pediatric neuroscientist at one of the nation’s top programs, working to find treatments for children with brain injuries. Her future is still uncertain, but thanks to her personalized health care plan and virtual twins, she has her best chance yet.
Virtual twin technology is already improving the lives of countless patients. The world will change in a few years.
Dr. Steve Levine is Senior Director of Virtual Human Modeling at Dassault Systèmes and Founder and Executive Director of the Living Heart Project.
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The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary articles are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the author’s opinions or beliefs. luck.
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