Semi Automated Pipeline to Create Anatomical Twins and Perform Electrophysiology Simulations for Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Shambhavi Malik1, Ludovica Cicci1, Abdul Qayyum1, Rahul Ghelani1, Ji-Jian Chow2, Alistair Young3, Gernot Plank4, Prapa Kanagaratnam5, Steven Niederer1
1Imperial College London, 2Hammersmith Hospital, 3King's College London, 4Medical University of Graz, 5Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust


Abstract

Cardiomyocyte properties and ventricular anatomy greatly influence the propagation of electrical signals, contraction timing, and ventricular function coordination. These are particularly relevant in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), where genetic mutations lead to alterations in contractile function, resulting in abnormal thickening of the myocardium. Although the effect of these anatomical and cellular changes remains underexplored, a better understanding of these mechanisms can improve patient care and disease management. We propose a semi-automated pipeline to develop HCM-patient anatomical twins to explore the impact of the disease on cardiac activation. We combine cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and thorax computed tomography (CT) scans to build torso models and use the ToR-ORd-dynCl ionic model to explore cardiomyocyte properties. We found that changes in HCM cellular electrophysiology have a limited impact on the whole heart activation pattern, which was observed to be preferentially driven by anatomy. Additional studies are needed to explore the impact of tissue-level fibrosis on ECG activation patterns.