Digital twin for presurgical assessment of cardiac ablation

Cardiac arrhythmias are irregularities of the heartbeat that can seriously affect the life of the patient, and can be fatal in severe cases. A typical treatment for serious cases of arrhythmias is the radiofrequency ablation based on catheterization. This is a minimally invasive therapy that has been practised for many years and proven to be effective. Ablation therapy is typically efficient, however insufficient treatment might occur resulting in a repetition of the procedure. Additionally, catheterization is not exempt from complications that can prolong the procedure and on rare occasions can even lead to the death of the patient. To eliminate complications and to provide a more efficient treatment, different ablation strategies and catheter technologies are being researched, the testing of which heavily relies on animal experimentation. Typically these experiments require large animals, such as pigs, sheep and cows, and are conducted either by using the extracted heart of the animal or by performing the experiment on an alive sedated animal. This research aims to provide accurate complex mathematical models to foster the use of computer simulations to optimize the efficiency and safety of catheterization, thus reducing animal experimentation. Using medical imaging data from patients which have been acquired and transferred following the ethical protocols and with the patients consent, a database of virtual human upper bodies and their internal organs will be created. These virtual bodies will be the digital twins of the patients, on which virtual therapies will be performed. In particular, computer designed catheters will be used and placed within the heart of the digital twin. Virtual catheterization will then be performed using the models developed in the project to accurately describe the biophysics and mechanics of the procedure. Virtual catheterizations will simulate the ablation of the different cardiac areas that are typically targeted by the therapy in the hospitals, providing a personalization framework for the assessment of the procedure.