Flight path to better heart implants

09 Nov 2005 | News
A team of European researchers is applying a technology used to measure airflow over aircraft wings to improve human heart implants.
By Lori Valigra
A team of European researchers is applying a technology used to measure airflow over aircraft wings to improve human heart implants.

Technology developed by a consortium of eight European partners under a €2.1 million grant from the European Commission's Information Society Technologies Programme has been tested to measure the effects of medical implants on blood flow. The system, which will be available for licence in the future, aims to help medical device makers improve the design of heart valves and pumps and provide doctors with a way to detect, and possibly correct, the side effects of implants.

The SMART-PIV group


The group, which started its project in June 2002, is looking for another €1.5 million to take its test system to commercialisation over the next two years, says project coordinator Fabrizio Lagasco. That money is being sought from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme or private sources. Each of the partners will share the project's intellectual property equally.

The eight partners are:

  • D'Appolonia, which is acting as coordinator for the project, Genova, Italy
  • LaVision GmbH, Germany
  • The University of Rome La Sapienza's Department of Mechanics and Aeronautics, Italy
  • The Computing System Laboratory at the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems, Greece
  • The Istituto Superiore di Sanita's Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering in Rome, Italy
  • Berlin Heart AG, Germany
  • RWTH/Aachen University of Technology, Germany
  • Infobyte SpA, Italy
"This system could revolutionise heart treatments," says Fabrizio Lagasco, coordinator of the SMART-PIV (particle image velocimetry) project and an engineer at D'Appolonia SpA, Genova, Italy. There is a shortage of heart donors, so the need for implants will continue to increase, he said. Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in Europe, claiming about four million lives annually, he says.

The scientists say the system fills a gap in the heart device sector that has limited the efficiency of implants. Ultrasound scans allow doctors to see potential problems with the natural heart and circulatory system, but they cannot provide a detailed analysis of the problems related to blood flow when it is modified by an artificial implanted device. Complications are widespread in patients who receive implants either as a long-term solution or interim treatment while awaiting a heart for transplantation.

At the core of the SMART-PIV system is miniaturised optical sensor technology that uses ultra-thin laser light sheets to capture images of the fluid dynamics of blood flowing through implanted devices. The system can then perform a numerical analysis on the images using a parallel computing subsystem to allow implant device designers or doctors to detect potential problems with the blood flow, such as high velocity gradients that can damage blood cells or low velocity that could lead to blood clots.

Test results in vitro show that the computing analysis can be completed in less than a day in 80 percent of cases, and in less than two days in all cases. The researchers now want to develop and evaluate it further in trials with a medical device manufacturer to move towards a commercial product. the group still needs two years to complete validation, upgrade software and imaging processing, and improve the graphical user interface of its technology, says Lagasco.

Lagasco says the consortium is in talks with Sorin Biomedica Cardio, a producer of heart valves, and with an Italian company looking to optimise the design of ventricular-assist devices (VADs) for heart patients.

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