Research Topic
The University of Tokyo and Fujitsu limited have been jointly working for more than 10 years to reproduce an individual’s heart by supercomputer.
The heart simulator can respond to needs from medical fields rapidly as a practical modeling procedure utilizing the technology.
The heart simulator can reproduce an individual’s heart motion precisely by computing electrical and mechanical behavior at the molecular structure level utilizing clinical data such as images of CT and ultrasound as input data.
In addition to the heart movement, for example, the heart simulator can compute the energy consumption of each part of the heart. It can compute change of myocardium thickness, internal structure and blood flow precisely as well as the appearance.
This is the highest technology in the world utilizing the computing power of a supercomputer that enables the simulation.
This technology enables us to recognize medical information that is difficult for present medical devices to grasp in advance. And it also enables us to try various treatments on the heart reproduced in the virtual world.
As a result, doctors can provide a more rational diagnosis and propose less invasive therapy to patients.
There are some R & D projects in progress to provide various services utilizing the heart simulator.
The University of Tsukuba Hospital and PIA Co.,Ltd. are jointly engaged in this theme.
We plan to obtain medical device approval within a few years and start business.
The number of patients who need cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) with biventricular pacing targeted by this theme are more than 5,000 (replacement with CRT-D+CRT-P new implantation) in Japan as of 2019, and more than 500,000 in USA based on 2002-2012 research.
Worldwide, the medical cost of CRT was expected to be 4.74 billion USD (appx.500 billion yen) in 2016, 9.2 billion USD (appx. 1 trillion yen).
We aim to eliminate non-effective invasive treatments as well as reduce enormous medical costs with this service.
In addition, we will be able to predict an individual patient who can expect to have a large CRT therapeutic effect among those who used to be considered as limited effect patients.
As a result, we can expect to provide a highly efficient medical service.
The National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, the University of Tokyo, UT-Heart Inc., Cross Effect Co., Ltd. and PIA Co.,Ltd. are jointly engaged in this theme.
In Japan, 1% of newborn babies are suffering from congenital heart disease. And it is said that including adults, there are about 600,000 patients.
We are engaging in clinical research urgently to demonstrate the effectiveness of the simulation. And we are aiming to provide the service for a self-pay care fee prior to medical expenses for health insurance adaptation. In this way, we would like to contribute to improving the quality of life of patients with congenital heart disease .
We are engaging in R & D to aim for various services.
For example, we are thinking of providing effective diagnosis support and predictive detection by investigating the cause of ischemic heart disease which accounts for almost half (47%) of heart failure.
If we can visualize blood flow of small blood vessels which cannot be seen by modalities such as CT and ultrasound, a big evolution may happen in the diagnosis and therapy world.
In addition, we plan to develop education materials from new viewpoints that utilize unprecedented knowledge through the heart simulation.
We are thinking to help medical personnel to develop skills by understanding heart disease, and to help academic institutes and medical device manufacturers to develop new devices by this service.
We will realize a “Digital medical” world that reproduces the patient’s heart in 3D individually and visually shows the simulated results of diagnosis and treatment.
