May 27, 2015 — Dassault Systèmes announced during its SIMULIA Community Conference that the first heart model from its “Living Heart Project” will be commercially available on May 29, 2015. Powered by Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform’s realistic simulation applications, the commercial, high-fidelity, scientifically validated 3-D simulator of a four-chamber human heart is the first product of its kind. With this model, device manufacturers, researchers and medical professionals will be able to perform virtual tests and visualize the heart’s response in ways that are not possible with traditional physical testing.
The “Living Heart” model as delivered represents a baseline healthy heart, which can be used to study congenital defects or heart disease by modifying the shape and tissue properties in an easy-to-use software editor. In addition, medical devices can be inserted into the simulator to study their influence on cardiac function, validate their efficacy and predict reliability under a range of operating conditions. For example, coronary stents can be evaluated for optimal type, size and placement location to achieve the best performance.
“I had been aware of advances in simulation technology, but prior to the ‘Living Heart Project’ I was unaware that it could address the types of challenges I have as a practicing cardiologist and medical educator,” said Robert Schwengel, M.D., FACC and clinical assistant professor of medicine, Alpert Medical School, Brown University. “Having spent time with their 3-D experiences, I believe a product like this could be very powerful in helping to educate my patients, students of medicine, and current medical professionals, as well as lead to improved diagnostic capabilities and the personalization of medical therapeutics.”
Announced in 2014, the “Living Heart Project” leverages crowdsourcing of its 45 current members to build its models while protecting the intellectual property of each member. Members include regulatory science focused organizations such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC), as well as technology providers, cardiologists, medical device manufacturers and hospitals such as St. Jude Medical and Mayo Clinic. This unique crowdsourcing approach has enabled the heart model to be independently tested and included in peer-reviewed scientific journals by project members, and helped Dassault Systèmes deliver the first iteration of the project’s commercial product on an accelerated schedule.
The “Living Heart” model includes well-defined anatomic details of the heart as well as proximal vasculature, such as the aortic arch, pulmonary artery and superior vena cava (SVC). The dynamic response of the heart model is governed by realistic electrical, structural and fluid (blood) flow physics.
In addition to the general availability of the heart simulator, the members of the “Living Heart Project” have collectively identified the highest priority cardiovascular applications for it and associated technological advancements which will help shape the functionality of future versions of the simulator.
For more information: www.3ds.com
March 11, 2022 
