High-Tech Healing

Charles Taylor, an assistant professor in the surgery and mechanical engineering departments at Stanford Medical School, and his team are pioneering a method of modeling patients’ vascular systems to customize operations to each patient’s arterial system. He claimed that he will extend the worlds of computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) from the purview of engineers to that of vascular surgeons. A software program developed at Stanford University predicts improvement in blood flow yielded by vascular surgery options. A geometric model of an operative plan shows a contour plot of blood pressure at peak systole. With the Aspire system, doctors can compare the results of a bypass procedure with the surgical prediction modeled before the operation, as shown on this part of the system’s user interface. The Aspire system displays medical images downloaded from the actual patient slated to undergo vascular surgery, so surgeons can tailor the operation to the individual.