[The personalized digital heart]

Progress in medical image analysis, biomathematics and biophysics has led to the development of the first personalized digital cardiac models that reproduce the anatomy and physiology of individual patients, permitting quantitative analysis of organ function and prediction of therapeutic effects. This article describes recent research in this field by our Asclepios project team at Inria, in collaboration with other Inria teams (Macs, Reo and Sisyphe) and external academic, clinical and industrial partners. While a number of mathematical and computational issues have to be solved before such personalized digital cardiac models can be used in routine clinical practice, these first results announce a new generation of tools in digital medicine which will help to improve preventive and predictive personalized medicine.