VIDAA, a project led by Dr. Oscar Cámara, director of the Physense research group, of the BCN Med Tech research unit and Dean of the UPF School of Engineering, is a web platform that, based on anonymised CT (Computerised Axial Tomography) images, allows clinical studies to be carried out with virtual hearts.

The platform is used to plan heart surgery. Currently, these types of operations are performed using minimally invasive techniques, which, although they offer great benefits for the patient, also require more time and resources for surgeons to plan. VIDAA offers medical staff a tool to make this planning more agile, making use of a virtual heart specific to each patient to be operated on.

Moreover, this platform also allows clinical studies in populations with virtual hearts so that medical device companies can test their products and simulate their behaviour before conducting animal experiments. VIDAA can reduce costs, and in the long run, when the simulations are sufficiently validated, it will also make it possible to avoid animal testing and do everything virtually.

Currently, the technology is only developed to work with hearts, but the aim is to be able to extrapolate its use to other organs.

More information at the original UPF news