New ways to diagnose and treat heart disease

Wed Mar 16 2016 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

New ways to diagnose and treat heart disease

16 March 2016

On average, one New Zealander dies from heart disease every 90 minutes.

Ageing populations, along with a steep rise in obesity, means cardiovascular disease including heart, stroke and blood vessel disease, is rapidly becoming an epidemic in Western countries.

But new technologies may be about to transform the way heart disease is diagnosed and treated.

Professor Nic Smith, Dean of Engineering at the University of Auckland, will give his inaugural lecture this month on leading-edge computer technologies able to ‘read’ the cardiac system of individual heart patients.

“The arteries that make up the ‘plumbing’ of the heart are unique to each one of us, similar to the way our fingerprints are,” Dr Smith says.

“Using computer modelling, we are developing the ability to provide diagnosis and care for patients based on this unique physiology.”

By modelling blood flow of an individual patient prior to surgery, doctors can see which arteries need to be unblocked. This personalised treatment will make surgery not only faster and cheaper but more effective.

The rate of secondary surgery, known as Type 2 failures, could be reduced by up to fifty per cent.

Currently head of the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Engineering, Professor Smith works with researchers in the United Kingdom in the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) Project. He is Honorary Consultant at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, London, a Fellow of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

This free public lecture will be held at the Faculty of Engineering on Monday, 21 March, 2016, 5-6pm in ground floor lecture theatre 401.439, 20 Symonds St, Auckland.

For more information contact:

Anne Beston, Media Relations Adviser, Communications, University of Auckland.

Email: a.beston@auckland.ac.nz,
Tel: +64 9 923 3258,
Mobile: + 64 (0) 21 970 089