Advanced monitoring techniques will help clinicians customize aneurysm treatment

For each patient, a treatment – ​​this is the principle of personalized medicine, which requires multidisciplinary skills in medicine and engineering to personalize diagnosis and therapy. This is the case of a new project that aims to improve the individual assessment of thoracic aortic aneurysms, and for which INEGI has contributed.

The objective is to create a methodology to characterize the tissue of the thoracic aortic aneurysm and, based on this knowledge, to create a digital tool capable of modeling the patient's specific hemodynamics. This biomechanically based approach will allow for a personalized analysis and treatment for each patient.

To make this a reality, INEGI is in charge of the mechanical design of the measuring devices, and responsible for evaluating the mechanical properties of biological tissues, and the use of advanced monitoring techniques to measure their deformation.

"Thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAA) affect between 5% and 10% of every 100,000 people", recalls Joana Machado, responsible for the project at INEGI. "It is important to simplify the diagnosis, and this means determining which factors contribute to decreased elasticity and consequent rupture of the aorta. Our monitoring solutions will therefore play a key role”.

The work has just started and will continue until 2025. The project AneurysmTool - Fluid-Structure Interaction for Functional Assessment of Ascending Aortic Aneurysms: A Biomechanical Approach to Clinical Practice is funded by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia and aims to partner entities of INEGI, the NOVA School of Science and Technology | FCT NOVA (NOVA.ID.FCT), the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM/UNL) and the Center for Mathematics Applied to Economic Forecasting and Decision Making (CEMAPRE/ISEG/ULisboa).