arterioscope.sim: Enabling Simulations of Blood Flow and Its Impact on Bioimpedance Signals.

Krispel, Thomas; Badeli, Vahid; Jafarinia, Alireza; Reinbacher-Köstinger, Alice; Tronstad, Christian; Ranftl, Sascha; Martinsen, Ørjan Grottem; Kalvoy, Håvard; Hisdal, Jonny; Kaltenbacher, Manfred; Hochrainer, Thomas

Objectives: Early detection of cardiovascular diseases and their pre-existing conditions, arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis, is crucial to increasing a patient's chance of survival. While imaging technologies and invasive procedures provide a reliable diagnosis, they carry high costs and risks for patients. This study aims to explore impedance plethysmography (IPG) as a non-invasive and affordable alternative for diagnosis. Methods: To address the current lack of large-scale, high-quality impedance data, we introduce arterioscope.sim, a simulation platform that models arterial blood flow and computes the electrical conductivity of blood. The platform simulates bioimpedance measurements on specific body segments using patient-specific parameters. The study investigates how introducing arterial diseases into the simulation affects the bioimpedance signals. Results: The simulation results demonstrate that introducing atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis leads to significant changes in the computed signals compared to simulations of healthy arteries. Furthermore, simulation of a patient-specific healthy artery strongly correlates with measured signals from a healthy volunteer. Conclusions and significance: arterioscope.sim effectively simulates bioimpedance signals in healthy and diseased arteries and highlights the potential of using these signals for early diagnosis of arterial diseases, offering a non-invasive and cost-effective alternative to traditional diagnostic methods.

ARTERIAL diseases; EARLY diagnosis; DIAGNOSIS; CARDIOVASCULAR diseases; ELECTRIC conductivity

Bioengineering (Basel), 2024, Vol 11, Issue 12, p1273

2306-5354

Academic Journal

10.3390/bioengineering11121273