OPTIMA (Optimal Target Identification via Modelling of Arrhythmogenesis)

2019: The beginning of use in surgery

At the end of August, 2019 real tests of the innovation approach to heart surgery began. The procedure developed by researchers of the university of John Hopkins is called Optimal identification of the purpose using modeling of an aritmogenez (OPTIMA) and includes creation of virtual model of heart of the patient before transaction. On this model surgeons can work a difficult procedure that then unmistakably to carry out it on the real person. 160 patients will take part in clinical trials.

The first stage is MRT-scanning which is used for creation of model of cameras of heart. The team of researchers fills model with virtual cells. These cages, as well as their real analogs, work differently depending on whether there are they in close proximity to the healthy or damaged heart tissues. Then researchers stimulate each cage with a virtual electric impulse to reveal an arrhythmia source.

Surgeons began to use virtual hearts for faultless transactions on real

Then the company performs virtual operation. During this process the model is updated as researchers add new damages to heart tissue, trying to delimit the arrhythmia center. The command repeats the procedure several times, testing a set of options of transaction and considering their effects. Thus, researchers can develop a unified plan of treatment which is aimed not only at an arrhythmia source, but also at potential complications of transaction. The last stage - to send the plan of treatment to the surgeon who just follows it in reality.

Such procedure can become a turning point for patients with fibrillation of auricles. On average, 50% of the patients operated concerning arrhythmia are forced to return for repeated surgical interventions because of unpredictable complications. Though the first tests of OPTIMA were carried out among very small selection, 10 people, only one of them had to return on the operating table.^[1]

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