Pacertool - a patient specific biofeedback guiding tool to improve Cardiac resynchronization therapy

Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) is one of the most important recent advancements in heart failure treatment. CRT consists of implantation of a resynchronization pacemaker and leads with electrodes that can stimulate both the right and left heart chamber. CRT therefore holds the potential to substantially improve patient care and reduce overall health care costs.

Several clinical trials have shown that use of CRT devices leads to long-term clinical benefits such as improved quality of life, exercise capacity, and reduction in hospitalization for heart failure and overall mortality. Despite these benefits, there remain a lot of unresolved questions and concerns, the most important being that up to 50 % of the patients treated with CRT do not derive any detectable benefit. There could be multiple reasons for such a substantial non-responder rate, with the most important being the positioning of the CRT device lead in left heart chamber. The determination of lead position is today doctor-dependent, and good positioning can be hard to achieve with limited access to physiological information. Therefore, lead optimisation strategies need to be developed which are patient-specific, have minor or no additional risks, guides the doctor to optimal positions and give immediate feedback on the effectiveness of pacing from lead location of choice.

The Pacertool project aims at development of the platform equipped with data analysis and visualization tools that provide feedback to the doctor in real-time during the procedure, aiming for a higher proportion of heart failure patients to have a positive effect of CRT.

Simula’s role

Simula will contribute with development of software and methods, such as for visualization, cardiac simulations, and data analysis, aimed at bringing the Pacertool software from the piloting phase to a complete state that enables clinical studies.

Partners

Oslo University Hospital
Inven2 AS
GE Vingmed Ultrasound
Medtronic Bakken Research Center

Funding Source:

Research Council of Norway (Biotek2021)

Coordinator:  Hans Henrik Odland, Oslo University Hospital