University of Melbourne doctors and engineers are using supercomputers to create 3D models from patients with heart disease, with photos from a camera thinner than a human hair.
Published in the European Heart Journal, the team is using images gathered during a routine angiogram and then fed into a supercomputer.
Within 24 hours a model of a person's artery is 3D printed that provides cardiologists crucial information about the behaviour of blood flow and the precise structure of the artery from the inside.
It also helps them make decisions about the best stent (the device used to hold open a collapsed or blocked artery) to insert.
The technique can also detect 'hot spots' for plaque, the waxy substance that builds up in arteries and causes heart disease. Some of these plaques have been difficult to find using traditional techniques.
According to lead author Associate Professor Peter Barlis, the technology could lead to tailored devices that fit patients perfectly.
"We're all different, with arteries that have different branches and sizes, tapering from larger to smaller. And much like debris accumulates along a riverbank, plaque can cling to certain areas of a person’s artery."
However, while the use of a super-high resolution camera, known as optical coherence tomography (OCT), has made it easier to image cholesterol plaques in heart arteries, it still isn't clear which of these plaques will go on to cause heart attacks.Certain disturbances in blood flow patterns provide clues about dangerous plaques, and potentially these can be revealed by simulating the arterial blood flows using supercomputers.
The researchers are also working on a biocompatible polymer to 3D print heart stents that precisely match a person's physical makeup, reducing the risk of stent collapse or complications.
In addition, they are interested in new polymers that will allow the stent to slowly disintegrate over time and that can deliver drugs directly to the location of the plaque.
Story is based on a media release provided by the University of Melbourne