Using a heart's "digital twin" to reduce cardiac surgeries

DW (English)

A children's hospital in Boston is using a heart's "digital twin" to test various treatment methods and their risks. The method has resulted in fewer cardiac surgeries.

Transcript

00:00 The digital twin of a human heart.

00:04 Thanks to this technology, the effects of different treatments can be tested

00:08 without having to operate.

00:10 Surgery on children's hearts is considered extremely risky.

00:15 Boston's Children's Hospital is spearheading the use of digital twins

00:19 to develop treatment plans, specifically tailored

00:22 to each child.

00:29 At the forefront is Dr. Steve Levine. He developed the first digital twin

00:33 of a human heart.

00:38 They're creating virtual twins of the children,

00:42 as early as newborn, and performing the surgeries

00:47 on the virtual twin first, deciding up front

00:50 what is best, and then trying it out on the child.

00:54 And in many cases, they only have one shot

00:57 to save the child's life. And the results have been spectacular.

01:01 Dr. Steve Levine started researching for the Living Heart Project

01:07 around 10 years ago

01:09 for very personal reasons. His daughter Jessie suffered from a rare heart defect

01:14 and had to undergo several operations as a child,

01:18 not all of which were equally successful.

01:21 She is now benefiting from the research,

01:24 because now pacemakers' optimal settings can be tested in advance

01:28 and in virtual reality.

01:34 They can actually insert the pacemaker, they can replicate

01:38 her condition, or thousands like her, try different pacing sequences

01:44 on thousands of different versions of

01:47 their heart to figure out which sequence would work out best,

01:51 and then try it out and confirm on her,

01:54 rather than experiment directly on her.

01:58 The findings can then immediately be transferred to other heart patients.

02:02 Virtual therapy tests for individual organs are just the beginning, though.

02:06 In future, everyone will have a digital twin

02:10 at their side with a personalized health plan.

02:18 I think what will happen is you will get

02:21 a virtual twin, which is a generic version of a human,

02:24 when you're born. It'll be quickly adapted to what we know about you

02:28 at that point. And then as you get older

02:32 and you get more diagnostics, more tests, it gets tuned.

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