Abstract
Computational models of the heart are increasingly being used in the development of devices, patient diagnosis and therapy guidance. While software techniques have been developed for simulating single hearts, there remain significant challenges in simulating cohorts of virtual hearts from multiple patients. To facilitate the development of new simulation and model analysis techniques by groups without direct access to medical data, image analysis techniques and meshing tools, we have created the first publicly available virtual cohort of twenty-four four-chamber hearts. Our cohort was built from heart failure patients, age 67±14 years. We segmented four-chamber heart geometries from end-diastolic (ED) CT images and generated linear tetrahedral meshes with an average edge length of 1.1±0.2mm. Ventricular fibres were added in the ventricles with a rule-based method with an orientation of -60° and 80° at the epicardium and endocardium, respectively. We additionally refined the meshes to an average edge length of 0.39±0.10mm to show that all given meshes can be resampled to achieve an arbitrary desired resolution. We ran simulations for ventricular electrical activation and free mechanical contraction on all 1.1mm-resolution meshes to ensure that our meshes are suitable for electro-mechanical simulations. Simulations for electrical activation resulted in a total activation time of 149±16ms. Free mechanical contractions gave an average left ventricular (LV) and right ventricular (RV) ejection fraction (EF) of 35±1% and 30±2%, respectively, and a LV and RV stroke volume (SV) of 95±28mL and 65±11mL, respectively. By making the cohort publicly available, we hope to facilitate large cohort computational studies and to promote the development of cardiac computational electro-mechanics for clinical applications.
Highlights
IntroductionComputational models for cardiac electro-mechanics underwent a rapid development
In the last decades, computational models for cardiac electro-mechanics underwent a rapid development
We investigate the relationship between left ventricle (LV) and right ventricle (RV) anatomy and simulation outputs
Summary
Computational models for cardiac electro-mechanics underwent a rapid development. Simulating cardiac electro-mechanics on large cohorts still remains a challenge. One of the largest computational studies used forty-six biventricular meshes to simulate ventricular electrical activation and mechanical contraction [1]. Single-patient models [2, 3] and smaller cohorts of biventricular meshes [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] proved the potential of computational modelling for predicting and planning patient treatment, and improving our understanding of cardiac physiology and pathophysiology. Small patient cohorts have a limited capability to capture patient anatomical variability. Biventricular models have limitations in representing realistic systolic motion, as anatomical cardiac structures surrounding the ventricles are not included [11]
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