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FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek

Patient-Specific Mathematical Modeling with Applications to Clinical Medical: Stroke and Syringomyelia

Awarded: NOK 6.9 mill.

In 2012 the FEniCS book was published. The PI co-authored 11 of the chapters of this book that describes most aspects of the FEniCS software suite. The release of this book was a significant effort and parts of the book concern the biomedical conditions in the focus of this project. Concerning the development of efficient and robust numerical algorithms, we have published 2 papers on the preconditioning of saddle point problems within this project, and we have continued our work on block preconditioners for inverse and optimal control problems. Three papers concerning patient-specific simulations in either clinical or biomech journals. These papers describe how abnormal geometries may result in devestating conditions like stroke and syringomyelia. Our findings here have also received attention from mass media such as VG and several other newspapers.

In this project we will perform computer simulations of two specific important problems in clinical medicine, namely stroke and syringomyelia. In both problems, it is hypothesized that abnormal anatomy causes abnormal flow and that this leads to pathog enesis. This hypothesis is supported by clinicians. Open questions are appropriate mathematical models for the flow and how to accurately identify abnormal flow. Therefore, this project aims at performing flow simulations where the anatomy and possib ly the velocity are obtained using state--of--the--art technology, to determine appropriate flow models and abnormal flow indicators. A typical simulation now takes from days to months, depending on the complexity of the model. Due to the great variatio ns in human anatomy, we will need to perform such simulations on hundreds of patients. With our expertise in developing accurate, robust, and efficient numerical algorithms, we aim at improving current algorithms significantly. If these simulation t ools shall be successful in clinical practice they need to complete within just a few hours. We will perform patient studies based on the internationally recognized software packages FEniCS and VMTK. FEniCS is an innovative finite element project fo r multiphysics simulations and VMTK is a toolkit for 3D reconstruction of blood vessels based on medical images. The principal investigator is a core developer in FEniCS and has contributed to VMTK. VMTK and FEniCS are open software that can be used fo r both commercial and research purposes. Hence, it is an ideal platform that hopefully later will be the basis of innovation projects aiming at providing technology for clinical practice. This project is multi-disciplinary and aims to create a tight collaboration between applied mathematicians/computer scientists (the PI and co-workers) and clinicians. The collaboration with recognized clinical researchers is established, but will be strengthened.

Publications from Cristin

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Funding scheme:

FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek