Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 3, 2025
In Silico Clinical Trials for Cardiovascular Disease
Published on: May 27, 2022
arterioscope.sim: Enabling Simulations of Blood Flow and Its Impact on Bioimpedance Signals
Thomas Krispel1, Vahid Badeli1, Alireza Jafarinia2
1Institute for Fundamentals and Theory in Electrical Engineering, Graz University of Technology, 8010 Graz, Austria.
Objectives:
Early detection of cardiovascular diseases and their pre-existing conditions, arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis, is crucial to increasing a patient's chance of survival. While imaging technologies and invasive procedures provide a reliable diagnosis, they carry high costs and risks for patients. This study aims to explore impedance plethysmography (IPG) as a non-invasive and affordable alternative for diagnosis.
Methods:
To address the current lack of large-scale, high-quality impedance data, we introduce arterioscope.sim, a simulation platform that models arterial blood flow and computes the electrical conductivity of blood. The platform simulates bioimpedance measurements on specific body segments using patient-specific parameters. The study investigates how introducing arterial diseases into the simulation affects the bioimpedance signals.
Results:
The simulation results demonstrate that introducing atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis leads to significant changes in the computed signals compared to simulations of healthy arteries. Furthermore, simulation of a patient-specific healthy artery strongly correlates with measured signals from a healthy volunteer.
Conclusions And Significance:
arterioscope.sim effectively simulates bioimpedance signals in healthy and diseased arteries and highlights the potential of using these signals for early diagnosis of arterial diseases, offering a non-invasive and cost-effective alternative to traditional diagnostic methods.
