System and method for planning a patient-specific cardiac procedure

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable code for producing a personalized set of cardiac ablation targets to treat ventricular tachycardia in a living patient's heart, said computer-executable code comprising instructions that, when executed by said computer, causes said computer to:

• receive contrast-enhanced three-dimensional MRI or CT imaging data of at least a portion of said living patient's heart, said living patient's heart comprising normal tissue regions and remodeled tissue regions;
• segment said contrast-enhanced three-dimensional MRI or CT data to obtain three-dimensional heart image data;
• segment said three-dimensional heart image data into at least three different tissue types of said heart based on said contrast-enhanced three-dimensional MRI or CT data, said at least three different tissue types including a normal tissue region, a scar tissue region and a transition zone region, said transition zone region including an infarct border zone tissue region and being characterized as having electrophysiological properties bounded by the properties of the normal and scar tissue regions;
• construct a model of at least a portion of said living patient's heart, said constructing said model comprising:
• creating a finite element mesh using the segmented three-dimensional data, to provide a geometrical representation of said patient's heart, the finite element mesh comprising a plurality of volume elements, wherein the volume elements each represent a volume having an edge length in a range of about 300-400 microns;
• determining a fiber orientation in each of the volume elements based on calculations executed on a patient-specific geometry of the patient's heart;
• and
• assigning electrophysiological parameters to each of the volume elements taking into account the determined fiber orientations and the type of tissue where the corresponding volume element is located;
• simulate at least one of electrophysiological or electromechanical activity of at least a portion of said living patient's heart using said model, said simulating inducing an arrhythmia in said model of said living patient's heart;
• produce, using said model, a personalized set of cardiac ablation targets representing locations in the heart critical to sustaining simulated ventricular tachycardia, such that when the targets are ablated, all simulated ventricular tachycardia is eliminated with a minimal ablation lesion size, wherein said producing a personalized set of cardiac ablation targets comprises simulating an initial target ablation, and upon the initial target ablation not eliminating all the simulated ventricular tachycardia re-calculating the personalized set of cardiac ablation targets;
• and
• export said personalized set of ablation targets for use in during the ablation procedure to treat ventricular tachycardia.

A system for producing a personalized set of cardiac ablation targets to treat ventricular tachycardia in a living patient's heart comprising a data processor configured with computer-executable code, said computer-executable code comprising instructions that, when executed by said data processor, causes said data processor to:

• receive contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance or CT three-dimensional imaging data of at least a portion of said living patient's heart, said patient's heart comprising normal tissue regions and remodeled tissue regions;
• segment said contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance or CT three-dimensional imaging data to obtain three-dimensional heart image data;
• segment said three-dimensional heart image data into at least three different tissue types of said heart based on said contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance or CT three-dimensional imaging data, said at least three different tissue types including a normal tissue region, a scar tissue region and a transition zone region, said transition zone region including an infarct border zone tissue region and being characterized as having electrophysiological properties bounded by the properties of the normal and scar tissue regions;
• construct a model of at least a portion of said living patient's heart, said constructing said model comprising:
• creating a finite element mesh using the segmented three-dimensional data, to provide a geometrical representation of said patient's heart, the finite element mesh comprising a plurality of volume elements, wherein the volume elements each represent a volume having an edge length in a range of about 300-400 microns;
• determining a fiber orientation in each of the volume elements based on calculations executed on a patient-specific geometry of the patient's heart;
• and
• assigning electrophysiological parameters to each of the volume elements taking into account the determined fiber orientations and the type of tissue where the corresponding volume element is located;
• simulate at least one of electrophysiological or electromechanical activity of at least a portion of said living patient's heart using said model, said simulating inducing an arrhythmia in said model of said living patient's heart;
• and
• produce, using said model, a personalized set of cardiac ablation targets representing locations in the heart critical to sustaining simulated ventricular tachycardia, such that when the targets are ablated, all simulated ventricular tachycardia is eliminated with a minimal ablation lesion size, wherein said producing a personalized set of cardiac ablation targets comprises simulating an initial target ablation, and upon the initial target ablation not eliminating all the simulated ventricular tachycardia re-calculating the personalized set of cardiac ablation targets;
• and
• export said personalized set of ablation targets for use during the ablation procedure to treat ventricular tachycardia.