Abstract

Due to their ability to repair damaged tissue, stem cells are among the most promising and most active research fields of medical science today. One application of stem cells currently investigated at the General Hospital of Linz in cooperation with the Red Cross Blood Center Linz is the treatment of heart attacks. Stem cells of the patient are transplanted into the infarcted area of the heart and shall there regenerate heart muscle functionality.

The aim of the CARDIAC project is the development of a software system that supports the investigated cardiac stem cell therapy.

The developed system enables cardiologists to reconstruct virtual dynamical 3D models of a patient's heart (left heart chamber and coronary arteries) from sequences of 2D x-ray images ("coronary angiographies"). From these models, various medical diagnostic parameters are derived and calculated by the software. Both, the novel quantification possibilities and the improved visualization help cardiologists to analyze improvements of the heart muscle functionality and the success of the therapy.