L’illustration montre le champ de potentiel électrique généré par le cœur à un instant donné, dans une patiente virtuelle.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Among them, ventricular arrhythmias are potentially serious pathologies that can lead to sudden cardiac death. Ventricular extrasystole is the mildest form of this category, but it can ultimately lead to potentially fatal fibrillation.
An arrhythmia occurs when the electrical activation wave, which coordinates the contraction of the heart, propagates abnormally. In the case of extrasystoles, this abnormality may have a focal origin that can be neutralized using an endocardial catheter. The challenge is to locate the origin of the arrhythmia so as to place the catheter there, and proceed with radiofrequency ablation to curb the pathology
We have developed a method aimed at speeding up this procedure. In order not to unduly inconvenience patients and cardiologists, we first tried out this method on virtual patients via the Jean-Zay supercomputer.
The simulations involved simulating the heart's electrical activation thousands of times, initiated at different locations, and then calculating the corresponding electrocardiograms, providing input for an arrhythmia origin prediction algorithm. These simulations require the integration of a system of reaction-diffusion equations over mil- lions of elements, realistically simulating the dynamics of electrically active cells in the heart.
The results showed that the method could accelerate the treatment of ventricular extrasystoles, but that it needs to be improved before it merits a clinical study, which is much more difficult to organize and carries a certain risk for patients.
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