Modelling and Simulation in Medicine - the Virtual Patient (Modellierung und Simulation in der Medizin - der Virtuelle Patient)

The research field " Modelling and Simulation in Medicine " is continuously emerging. In planning of radiotherapy it has already a long tradition currently moving into new areas. In image guided surgery and intervention it is clearly moving forward. In other fields like e. g. cardiology it is still in an infant stage. The aim is to create mathematical models of the patient , including the individual geometry of the patient and his/her physiology and pathophysiology. So in addition to geometrical information that can be gained from imaging modalities like CT, MRI or Ultrasound (often called " morphology ") we include functional and biochemical information. Here are some examples of functional and biochemical information of a patient, that can be integrated with his/her individual morphology: • Elastomechanics of bone and soft tissue, • Contraction of muscle and tension development in skeletal muscle and in the heart, • spread of electrophysiological depolarization in neu-rons, peripheral nerves and in heart tissue, • flow in blood vessels or in the heart, • hemodynamics and blood pressure control, • renal excretion and clearance of the kidney, • gas exchange in the lung, • metabolism in tumors and tumor growth. We, working in this field, see many applications of modelling and simulation that clearly can support the medical doctor and improve health care: • Improved prediction of how a disease will propagate: we can move from a judgement that is based on empirical statistics to solid knowledge about the individual patient and his/her specific problem. • Therapy planning will move from statistics based decision making like " what was best for 80% of all patients " , to individual quantitative optimization of clinical output. • Better optimization of medical technology will become possible, both during research and development of a medical system and during adaptation of a medical device to the individual patient. • Medical research on etiology, that is to find the first and original reason of a disease, can profit significantly, because research can move from observing symptoms to understanding pathophysiological processes. Modelling and simulation in medicine is an emerging field especially in the last decade, because only at that time the huge amount of experimental data, that is a prerequisite for any type of mathematical modelling in natural science, was available – even though it has to be admitted , that very often we just see the tip of the iceberg. " …