Personalized Virtual Heart Models for Diagnosis and Treatment Planning in Patients with Heart Failure (MyVirtualHF)

The prevalence of Heart Failure (HF) in Europe is 8% and a leading cause of hospitalizations. However, the diagnosis and management of HF patients remain a challenge. The vision of MyVirtualHF is to reshape the diagnosis and treatment of HF by the development of personalized virtual heart computer models for therapeutic decision making. 

This vision addresses the current lack of specificity in designing care for the individual HF patient. Current medical standards rely on imprecise and insensitive biomarkers (such as ejection fraction or ECGs) to make predictions about patient trajectory. While more invasive electrophysiological measurements have shown promise as better outcome predictors, the high risk for complications associated with the procedures makes implementation in the clinic inadvisable. Finally, predicting an individual patient?s response to therapies remains difficult. Often, drugs or procedures need to be fine-tuned or repeated in order to reach optimal therapeutic responses from the patient. 

The aim of MyVirtualHF is to address this limitation in current clinical care by developing personalized virtual heart models that can be used by physicians to non-invasively and safely diagnose and predict therapeutic response in HF patients. In order to do so, MyVirtualHF will develop efficient personalization methods that incorporate an individual HF patient?s geometry, genetics, electrophysiological changes, etc. into virtual models. The heterogeneity and complexity of remodeling that occurs under HF make personalization an inherently risky endeavor. However, the success of MyVirtualHF could lead to a paradigm shift in treating and ensuring health in HF patients.

Funding:

Research Council of Norway - Young Research Talent