Working with "digital twins" of patients' hearts, doctors have improved cardiac ablation outcomes for patients with life-threatening arrhythmias.
In the first clinical trials for cardiac digital twins technology, researchers at Johns Hopkins University created digital replicas of patients' hearts, then tested procedures on those twins before performing them on the real thing.
For each participant in the trial, the team created a personalized digital twin of their heart, based on 3D imaging from a clinical contrast-enhanced MRI.
Through the digital twins, the team studied how each heart processed electricity and then predicted which area or areas was provoking the arrhythmias, the optimal way to treat each patient, and whether the arrhythmia would return after ablation.
Working with digital twins resulted in faster and significantly more accurate procedures that reduced recurrences of arrhythmias for patients, compared to traditional methods.
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