Newswise — Children who must undergo a series of complicated surgeries to repair life-threatening congenital heart defects now have a much better shot at short-term and long-term health thanks to researchers at the Georgia Tech College of Computing.
Professor Jarek Rossignac and his graduate students in the School of Interactive Computing have developed software that allows pediatric cardiac surgeons to manipulate a digital 3D model of the patient's actual heart and explore surgical options before they ever set foot in an operating room.
The Surgem software gives surgeons a better understanding of each child's unique heart defect and greatly increases the likelihood that children with complex anomalies, requiring multiple surgeries over a period of years, will have smoother recoveries and an improved quality of life after the operations.
"We designed a sophisticated graphic interface where the operator holds a 3D tracker in each hand to rotate, pull and twist the digital model of the patient's anatomy," Rossignac says. "It takes surgeons only minutes to master the program, because interacting with 3D shapes by holding a tool in each hand is what they do everyday."
The technology, known as image-based surgical planning, creates a three-dimensional model of the child's heart with data from MRI scans. The software allows surgeons to get a detailed look at the child's heart functions with the new MRI system and design surgical procedures for optimum post-operative performance.
Ajit Yoganathan, Regents' Professor, associate chair for research and the Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair in Biomedical Engineering, and his team bring another crucial component to the process: the ability to simulate the heart's post-operative behavior through computational fluid dynamic analysis and to inform the surgeon which option promises to be most effective for the patient.
Yoganathan has done years of research dealing with the fluid mechanics of artificial heart valves and the use of Doppler ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging to study the heart's blood flow patterns in a non-invasive way.
Pediatric cardiologists and pediatric surgeons at Emory University, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) also have been key in refining the Surgem software and the process through which the surgical options are analyzed. Kirk Kanter, chief of pediatric heart surgery at Emory University and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, has visited Rossignac's MAGIC Lab and used the Surgem software to prepare for two Fontan heart surgeries. Fontan surgery is the final step in a series of up to three staged surgical procedures performed over a child's first few years of life to treat congenital heart disease.
"[Surgem] eliminates a lot of the guesswork," Kanter says. "We've designed the surgery beforehand and analyzed it on the computer. So rather than trying to guess what would be the best way, we already know which option will work best for this child's anatomy."
One out of 200 children in the United States is born with a heart disease or defect, and those born with only a single functioning ventricle can present the greatest challenge to treat surgically. Fontan surgery reconfigures the heart to divert blood flowing to the right side of the heart directly to the lungs, so the defective heart does not have to pump it there. Without this surgery, most infants with a single functioning ventricle would not survive.
Fontan surgeries have become common and are usually successful, Kanter says, but problems can arise as the child grows older. The Georgia Tech/Emory team set out to help surgeons address that and other unique challenges of Fontan repair. The system they created together allows biomedical engineers to determine how any geometric change in the current heart configuration would change blood flow and strength, helping surgeons make the best choices for the operation and optimize the procedure's long-term results.
Many scientists believe that simulation-based planning of cardiovascular treatments could lead to lower morbidity and mortality.
Kanter says he hopes this collaboration is just the first of many opportunities for surgeons and doctors at Emory and Children's Healthcare to work together with "the smart people" at Georgia Tech.
"We have the questions, and they have the answers," Kanter says.
About the Georgia Tech College of ComputingThe Georgia Tech College of Computing is a national leader in the research and creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress. With its graduate program ranked 9th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, the College's unconventional approach to education is pioneering the new era of computing by expanding the horizons of traditional computer science students through interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on human centered solutions. For more information about the College of Computing, its academic divisions and research centers, please visit http://www.cc.gatech.edu.
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