euHeart project

Cardiovascular disease kills around 1.9 million people every year in the European Union (EU), with the associated annual health costs estimated at EUR 105 billion. Around half of these deaths occur in people who have previously had a heart attack, most of whom will develop heart failure before they die. There are currently around 10 million heart failure patients in the EU and it is one of the commonest medical reasons for hospitalization in adults. Finding better ways to manage and treat coronary heart disease and chronic heart failure is therefore seen as one of the most effective ways of reducing the human cost and financial burden of these debilitating conditions.

The newly created ‘euHeart’ consortium, which comprises 16 research, academic, industrial and medical organizations from six different European countries, will work to improve the diagnosis, therapy planning and treatment of cardiovascular disease by developing computer models that simulate the normal and disease-related behavior of each individual patient’s heart and the aorta.

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