How can diseases of the cardiovascular system be detected before symptoms appear? Researchers at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) have found a way to track them down at an early stage. Cardiovascular diseases are among the most common causes of death worldwide. They are often only discovered when symptoms have already appeared and the is already relatively advanced.
Instead of , surgery is then usually necessary. During their doctoral theses as part of the TU Graz lead "Mechanics, Modelling and Simulation of Aortic Dissection" led by Gerhard Holzapfel, Sascha Ranftl from the Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics and Vahid Badeli from the Institute of Fundamentals and Theory in Electrical Engineering at TU Graz found a way to improve and accelerate the early detection of such diseases without the use of expensive diagnostic methods such as MRI or CT. Using a digital twin of the affected person, they can also investigate any diseases more thoroughly.
This can relieve the burden on patients and doctors as well as health care facilities. They have already applied for a patent for their method and are now bringing it to market maturity in the TU Graz spin-off "arterioscope." Influenced electric fields "The basic principle is that any disease that changes the cardiovascular mechanics will also change the externally applied electrical field in a certain way.
This applies to arteriosclerosis, aortic dissection, aneurysms, heart valve defects, etc.," says Ranftl. T.