INTERACTIVE 3D MODELS OF CARDIAC MORPHOGENESIS

Beginning medical students are taught the early steps in cardiac morphogenesis as a foundation for understanding cardiac development, congenital cardiac pathologies, and the organization of the adult thorax and its viscera. The early morphogenetic events in cardiac development are dependent upon intricate changes in the topology of concentric tissue layers within the early embryo. Classical teaching techniques attempt to convey these topological changes through the use of 2-dimensional representations are inadequate and are a source of frustration and confusion to a majority of beginning medical students because few individuals are naturally skilled converting 2-dimensional images in 3- dimensional images within the "minds eye." Anatomix proposes to first create 3-dimensional images of developing hearts from a primary data set derived from authentic histological sections of embryonic material; and second to use this primary data set to create artistic animated images that can be used interactively by students to develop their own working minds eye images. For this PHASE I study, a consortium between Anatomix and Chanime will ensure high product quality in all scientific, pedagogical, artistic and commercial aspects. If successful, the novel approach proposed here can be applied to a variety of commercial instructional applications. $ = TOTAL AWARD AMTS & NOT LIMITED TO PORTION OF PROJECT RELATED TO SUBJECT OF SEARCH SUBPROJECT $ = TOTAL AWARD AMOUNT DIVIDED BY NUMBER OF SUBPROJECTS SOURCE: CRISP FORMAT F FY 97 LAST UPDATE 04-07-98 1QUERY 1536 ID SEARCH 06/01/98 PAGE 423 --PROJECT NUMBER......1 R43 HL57738-01 INVESTIGATOR NAME/ADDRESS FY 97 DOERR, RONALD J IRG/INTRAMURAL UNIT..ZRG7 DATA SPECTRUM CORP AWARD AMOUNT......... $99,500 437 DIMMOCKS MILL RD HILLSBOROUGH, NC 27278 PERFORMING ORGANIZATION: DATA SPECTRUM CORPORATION TITLE DYNAMIC CARDIAC VENTRICULAR PHANTOM FOR MEDICAL IMAGING ABSTRACT: Three million myocardial infarctions are recorded annually in the United States, with an accompanying mortality rate of approximately 15%. The annual medical costs for screening of patients at risk for cardiac diseases using nuclear medicine imaging are estimated at greater than $500,000,000. A reduction in mortality is expected with improved diagnostic imaging procedures. However, it is difficult to develop and evaluate improved cardiac imaging protocols without a realistic beating heart phantom. The long term goal of this project is the development and marketing of a Dynamic Cardiac Ventricular Phantom (DCVP) system for use in clinical protocol evaluation, quality assurance and training. Phase I specific aims are to: (l) determine the average three-dimensional configuration of the beating myocardial ventricles, (2) incorporate this information into the preliminary design of a DCVP and design a test fixture system using computer aided design, (3) construct the test fixture system, and (4) evaluate and determine materials and system components suitable for use in the DCVP. The phantom will be designed primarily for nuclear cardiac imaging using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET), but could be adapted for other cardiovascular imaging technologies such as ultrasound, magnetic resonance, and computed tomography.