The @neurIST project successfully demonstrated its underlying series of linked tools — called a “toolchain” — utilizing software from ANSYS, which automates complex tasks such as aneurysm modeling and simulation. The project is now moving toward developing patient-specific treatment for this devastating condition.
An aneurysm is the ballooning of a weakened artery wall (with cerebral aneurysm occurring in the brain), with the constant threat that it may burst, leading to uncontrolled bleeding and often death. Ultimately, the @neurIST project expects to provide individualized aneurysm rupture predictions. The toolchain is a critical part of the project’s infrastructure: It combines diverse, independent tools into an integrated suite, in which the output of one tool becomes the input for the next. The resulting automated workflow brings together multiple strands of patient data — including CT scans, X-rays, angiograms, and other routine test results — transforming them into 3-D representations that are the basis for dynamic simulations performed with ANSYS® software. The resulting information can be used in other @neurIST software systems by doctors, researchers and engineers at hospitals, universities and medical device companies to develop patient-specific treatments. Current medical solutions have significant rates of impairment and mortality, and so the innovative approach of @neurIST will enable medical teams to assess the threat of rupture versus the need for risky surgery. Project partners are now collecting and analyzing clinical data in expectation of developing best practices and, perhaps, identifying the underlying causes of the condition.
“There is a demonstrated need for the use of computer-based imaging and monitoring not just to diagnose disease, but also for patient-specific simulations to test alternative treatments,” said Jim Cashman, president and chief executive officer at ANSYS, Inc. “@neurIST is a comprehensive example of this. It fuses diagnostic, modeling and simulation data into a coherent representation of a patient's condition. ANSYS is at the foundation of the project because of our commitment to advancing the use of engineering simulation in new and innovative applications — things that previously were never imagined. The company has long served the biomedical industry with leading-edge technology that enables advances in solving unique and complex problems.”
“The aim of the @neurIST project is to transform the management of the condition by providing new insight, personalized risk assessment and methods for the design of improved medical devices and enhanced treatment protocols. This demonstration marks a major milestone within the project and is an important step on the way to personalized risk assessment, which could reduce unnecessary treatment by 50 percent or more, with resulting estimated savings of hundreds of millions of euros per annum. Beyond financial benefits, the personal — and family — consequences of aneurysm rupture are devastating,” said Alejandro Frangi of Barcelona’s Universitat Pompeu Fabra, which is coordinating the @neurIST project. "We have exposed the toolchain to detailed evaluation by critical groups of clinicians and surgeons, and the response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, with over 8 out of 10 professionals expecting to see the system enter clinical service.”
“Our experience with collaborative projects such as @neurIST has shown that combining expertise in the different disciplines has enabled us to achieve much more than any one of us could have done on our own. The modular approach that the team has adopted enables the rapid integration of the project’s different tools with software from ANSYS. This has enabled the results to be assessed quickly, all in order to understand their implications for the treatment of cerebral aneurysms,” said Ian Jones, head of technical services at ANSYS UK.
These results are utilized by other tools developed as part of the project, some of which are also based on ANSYS software: For example, the @neuENDO software suite can customize and optimize the design of medical devices such as stents and coils. “@neuENDO enables the designer to study the effects of the fluid dynamics and the stresses within the arteries as well as the relative benefits of alternative stents, using the integrated capability of software from ANSYS to simulate fluid structure interactions,” said Derek Sweeney, managing director of IDAC Ireland, an ANSYS channel partner responsible for the delivery of the @neuENDO module.
For downloadable images, visit http://www.ansys.com/newsimages.
About @neurIST
The @neurIST project, which has the full title Integrated Biomedical
Informatics for the Management of Cerebral Aneurysms, is an integrated
project in the sixth framework programme of the European Commission (EC)
and seeks to provide channels for the integration of all data sources on
cerebral aneurysm. Of the project's seven workpackages, two are
dedicated to the development of the four integrated exploitation suites
of software that are destined for clinical and industrial use, two more
are providing a secure IT infrastructure and one is collecting detailed
clinical data. Work packages dedicated to management, dissemination and
exploitation complete the project's structure, the results from which
are designed to be readily transportable to other disease processes. The
central strategy of @neurIST is the development of vertical integration
across data structures and across length scales, but horizontal
integration at every level of abstraction, from access to information
sources, to complex information processing, knowledge representation,
structuring and fusion, all of which will cement the collaboration
between the disciplines. For more information, visit
www.aneurist.org .
