ABSTRACT
This article describes a personal computer-based system for simulation of image-guided
cardiovascular interventional procedures for physician and technician training, education,
patient-specific pretreatment planning, and therapeutic device design and evaluation.
The system provides users with the ability to manipulate and interface interventional
devices such as catheters, guide wires, stents, and coils within two-dimensional (2-D)
and volume-rendered 3-D reconstructed vascular images in real time. Finite element
modeling is used to predict and characterize the interaction of the instruments with
component parts of the vascular system and other body tissues. Image display monitors
provide fluoroscopic, road mapping, and volume-rendered 3-D presentations of the vasculature.
System software libraries provide the opportunity to choose various commonly used
catheter and guide wire shapes and sizes as well as various sizes of stents and occluding
coils. For training purposes, the system can be incorporated into a lifelike augmented
reality-based environment in which interventional procedures are performed. This system
also provides a method to design and evaluate the potential performance and/or clinical
application of medical devices for interventional applications.
KEYWORDS
Cardiovascular simulation - interventional radiology training - catheter design
