ventricular tachycardia<\/a>, a notoriously difficult-to-treat arrhythmia that is a major cause of sudden cardiac arrest, blamed for about 300,000 U.S. deaths a year.<\/p>\nThe study, by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, was a small first step. The Food and Drug Administration allowed the digital twin technology to guide treatment for just 10 patients, and much larger studies will be needed.<\/p>\n
But the results reported Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine come as doctors increasingly are exploring how a technology long used in aerospace and other industries might be harnessed for better health, too.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jeffrey Goldberger, a heart specialist at the University of Miami who wasn\u2019t involved with the study, experimented with more rudimentary iterations 15 years ago and praised the new findings. \u201cThis is what we envisioned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Doctors have long used 3D models, both physical and computer-generated ones, to simulate disease and practice techniques. But Hopkins biomedical engineer Natalia Trayanova said true digital twins predict how a real organ can react to different treatments. Her lab is pioneering colorful interactive models developed with an advanced MRI scan and other data from each patient.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe treat the twin before we treat the patient,\u201d Trayanova said. \u201cDid it work? And if it did, are there new things that arise\u201d that will require more or different care?<\/p>\n
The heart\u2019s electrical system powers our heartbeat. Ventricular tachycardia is a super-fast heartbeat triggered when an electrical wave short-circuits in the organ\u2019s bottom chambers, the ventricles, and prevents them from pumping blood out to the body.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see this heart that is basically quivering,\u201d Trayanova said.<\/p>\n
Medication can help but the main treatment is ablation, when doctors thread catheters to the heart to burn misfiring tissue. But it\u2019s a bit trial-and-error, as patients spend hours under anesthesia while doctors determine where to aim. Repeat ablations are common, and many patients have an implanted defibrillator as backup.<\/p>\n
Enter Trayanova\u2019s digital twins of patients\u2019 ventricles. Colors swirl on a computer screen \u2013 blue, green, yellow and orange \u2013 showing how the heart\u2019s electrical wave moves across the chamber\u2019s healthy areas before getting stuck on damaged tissue. It\u2019s trapped in a circular motion that she compares to the swirl of a hurricane.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt allows me to recreate the functioning of the patient\u2019s organ and then predict what is the best way to ablate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The technology locates a dysfunctional region where the electrical wave repeatedly hits. Virtually ablating it will show if that solves the problem or if another arrhythmia forms that also will need zapping. \u201cThen we poke it again,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
Trayanova\u2019s team created customized ablation targets for each of the 10 study participants. Cardiologists transferred them to a mapping system they use as a guide and aimed just at those targets instead of hunting their own.<\/p>\n
More than a year later, eight patients had no arrhythmias while two experienced only a single brief episode while they were healing — better than the treatment\u2019s typical 60% success rate, said Dr. Jonathan Chrispin, a Hopkins cardiologist and the study\u2019s lead author. All but two also stopped their anti-arrhythmia medicine.<\/p>\n
More importantly, cardiologists may burn away less tissue by targeting \u201cspecifically the areas that we think are critically important,\u201d Chrispin said. \u201cWe could potentially make these procedures shorter, safer, more effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hopkins team hopes to study the digital twin approach in a larger study with other hospitals, and has begun a trial using it to treat a more common type of irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation. Other researchers are studying digital twins for cancer care.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Scientists created virtual replicas of patients\u2019 diseased hearts so precise that blocking a dangerous irregular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1927,793,97,1492,248195,248193,149,8640,8641,243,248194,79,795],"class_list":{"0":"post-559913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-general-news","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-heart-disease","12":"tag-jeffrey-goldberger","13":"tag-jonathan-chrispin","14":"tag-lifestyle","15":"tag-maryland","16":"tag-md-state-wire","17":"tag-medication","18":"tag-natalia-trayanova","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}