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Published on: February 8, 2022
Computational modeling of cardiac disease: potential for personalized medicine
Matthias Reumann1, Viatcheslav Gurev2, John Jeremy Rice1,2
1Functional Genomics and Systems Biology, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, PO Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA. johnrice@us.ibm.com ; www.research.ibm.com/people/j/johnrice.
Insights
Cardiac modeling and simulation advance cardiovascular care by simulating electrical and mechanical heart functions. Patient-specific models promise personalized medicine for treating heart conditions.
Area of Science:
- Computational biology
- Biomedical engineering
- Cardiovascular research
Background:
- Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a major cause of mortality and significant healthcare expenditure.
- Current cardiac modeling often focuses on average cases, limiting personalized application.
- Advanced simulation tools are needed to understand cardiac physiology and pathophysiology.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review current cardiac modeling approaches, including electrophysiological and electromechanical models.
- To highlight the potential of patient-customized cardiac models for personalized treatment.
- To discuss challenges and future directions in cardiac modeling for precision medicine.
Main Methods:
- Description of electrophysiological models simulating channelopathies and arrhythmias.
- Explanation of electromechanical models integrating electrical and mechanical heart functions.
- Discussion of data requirements for patient customization versus generic models.
Main Results:
- Electrophysiological models elucidate arrhythmia mechanisms.
- Electromechanical models offer a more comprehensive view of heart function.
- Patient data can customize some model aspects, but limitations remain.
Conclusions:
- Cardiac modeling is crucial for understanding heart diseases.
- Patient-specific cardiac models are key to advancing personalized cardiovascular medicine.
- Continued development is needed to overcome challenges in creating fully customized models.
Abstract:
Cardiovascular diseases are leading causes of death, reduce life quality and consume almost half a trillion dollars in healthcare expenses in the USA alone. Cardiac modeling and simulation technologies hold promise as important tools to improve cardiac care and are already in use to elucidate the fundamental mechanisms of cardiac physiology and pathophysiology. However, the emphasis has been on simulating average or exemplar cases. This report describes two classes of cardiac modeling efforts. First, electrophysiological models of channelopathies simulate the altered electrical activity that is thought to promote arrhythmias. Second, electromechanical models attempt to capture both the electrophysiological and mechanical aspects of heart function. One goal of the community is to develop models with sufficient patient customization to assist in personalized treatment planning. Some model aspects can be customized with existing data collection techniques to more closely represent individual patients while other model aspects will likely remain based on generic data. Despite important challenges, cardiac models hold promise to be important enablers of personalized medicine.
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