The euHeart project was a European research initiative targeting the personalized diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease. The project combined sixteen industrial, clinical and academic partners including Philips Research and Philips Healthcare. The project duration was 54 months with a budget of 19.05 million.

Heart disease represents a highly relevant and epidemiologically significant contributor to loss of quality and quantity of life within Europe. Cardio-vascular disease (CVD) causes over 4.35 million deaths including nearly half of all non-accidental deaths (Petersen, S., et al., European cardiovascular disease statistics, 2005 edition). This, currently western, epidemic is now also spreading to developing nations, and was predicted to become the most common cause of death in these countries by 2010 (The World Health Organization (WHO), www.who.int, 2003). CVD manifests itself in diseases such as coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, and cardiac arrhythmias. These diseases have a significant impact on the EU economy with an estimated cost of EUR 169 billion a year (Petersen, S., et al., European cardiovascular disease statistics, 2005 edition). This significant financial burden is spread across community sectors with approximately 62% of costs due to direct health care costs, 21% due to productivity losses and 17% due to the informal care of people with CVD. Thus the early detection and prediction of the progression of CVD are key requirements towards improved treatment, a reduction in mortality and morbidity, and of course to reduce healthcare costs within the European economy.

Describing human anatomy, physiology and disease and predicting its behavior from patient-specific measurements is the ambitious goal of the wider Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) initiative. The euHeart project focused on the development of methods for the patient-specific modeling of the heart and its major diseases. Its specific objective is to improve diagnosis, treatment planning and delivery, and optimization of implantable devices by making cardiac models patient-specific using clinical measurements. To achieve this goal, euHeart built on the previous generation of advanced cardiac models (Hunter, P., et al., Mech Ageing Dev, 2005. 126(1): 187-92, Smith, N., et al., J Exp  Biol, 2007. 210: 1576-1583) and used state-of-the-art clinical imaging to develop new and personalized models of individual cardiac physiology. The goal of this approach was not only to improve the understanding of cardiovascular disease (CVD) but more importantly to demonstrate the potential of biophysical models for significantly improving healthcare.

The specific cardiovascular diseases on which the euHeart project focused are:

• Congestive, either due to abnormal activation (treated with cardiac resynchronization therapy) or due to structural abnormalities ((corrected) congenital heart disease) leading to abnormal hemodynamic and loading (treated by ventricular assist devices, potentially as a bridge to transplantation)
• Cardiac arrhythmias, arising from congenital defects or structural abnormalities induced by and hypertension, and resulting in symptoms and increased risk of sudden death (treated by )
• Abnormal myocardial tissue perfusion in coronary artery disease, potentially in the absence of a significant epicardial vessel stenosis or after percutaneous interventions
• Abnormalities in hemodynamic and loading due to , resulting in inefficient cardiac dynamics and with high risk of future remodeling and heart failure.