A Model Heart

This article discusses the advantages of using a realistic simulation model of the heart. A model might help cardiologists predict how a heart condition would progress. It could provide new ways to design and approve cardiovascular devices, which rarely undergo large-scale human testing before commercialization. Surgeons could use the model to test new procedures or plan the best intervention for patients. Researchers could use it to develop better ways to image constantly beating hearts. For example, Dassault's Living Heart model is a larger-than-life three-dimensional representation that enables surgeons, researchers, and engineers to look at the human heart in different ways. The finite element mesh of the first Living Heart model contains 200,000 tetrahedral Elements connected at 50,000 finite element nodes. The Living Heart model is already suitable for testing pacemaker leads, since it needs to model only mechanical stress during motion. Projecting the progression of heart disease will require a more sophisticated model that incorporates the behavior of the underlying heart tissue.