CARDIOSIM©: The First Italian Software Platform for Simulation of the Cardiovascular System and Mechanical Circulatory and Ventilatory Support

Abstract

This review is devoted to presenting the history of the CARDIOSIM© software simulator platform, which was developed in Italy to simulate the human cardiovascular and respiratory systems. The first version of CARDIOSIM© was developed at the Institute of Biomedical Technologies of the National Research Council in Rome. The first platform version published in 1991 ran on a PC with a disk operating system (MS-DOS) and was developed using the Turbo Basic language. The latest version runs on PC with Microsoft Windows 10 operating system; it is implemented in Visual Basic and C++ languages. The platform has a modular structure consisting of seven different general sections, which can be assembled to reproduce the most important pathophysiological conditions. One or more zero-dimensional (0-D) modules have been implemented in the platform for each section. The different modules can be assembled to reproduce part or the whole circulation according to Starling’s law of the heart. Different mechanical ventilatory and circulatory devices have been implemented in the platform, including thoracic artificial lungs, ECMO, IABPs, pulsatile and continuous right and left ventricular assist devices, biventricular pacemakers and biventricular assist devices. CARDIOSIM© is used in clinical and educational environments.

The Role of TandemHeartTMcombined with ProtekDuoTMas Right Ventricular Support Device: A Simulation Approach

“…For the purposes of our study, the two new modules, which simulate the behavior of the TandemHeart TM pump and the ProtekDuo TM plus TandemHeart TM device, were combined with five modules of the cardiovascular network described in [29][30][31][32][33] as follows:…”

“…Figure 2 Electrical analogue of the cardiovascular system with the RVAD connected "in series" from the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery and "in parallel" from the right atrium to the pulmonary artery, respectively. All the circuit elements have been described in [29][30][31][32][33] The heart numerical model, which consists of the left ventricle and atrium (left heart), the right ventricle and atrium (right heart), and the septum, is included in the network configuration assembled for the study. All these elements are described by variable elastance model; elv (erv) represents the left (right) ventricular time-varying elastance; ela (era) is the left (right) atrial time-varying elastance; eVspt (eAspt)…”

Modelling and Simulation of the Combined Use of IABP and Impella as a Rescue Procedure in Cardiogenic Shock: An Alternative for Non-Transplant Centres?

“…This study was designed and based on the use of CARDIOSIM©, which is a numerical simulator of the cardiovascular system developed in the Cardiovascular Numerical/Hybrid Modelling Lab (Rome) at the Institute of Clinical Physiology (IFC-CNR), in collaboration with the Department of Human Movement and Sport Sciences, "Foro Italico" 4th University of Rome, the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Strathclyde (Glasgow), the Department of Clinical, Internal Anesthesiology and Cardiovascular Sciences, "Sapienza" University of Rome, and the Faculty of Medicine of Teaching University Geomedi [4,5,19,21,26,31]. The software simulator consists of lumped-parameter models of the circulatory network and the time-varying elastance concept to reproduce native ventricular, atrial and septal behaviour [21,31].…”

“…In the study of the interaction between the cardiovascular and respiratory systems and different types of mechanical circulatory and respiratory assistance devices, numerical and hybrid simulators have proven to be excellent tools for the analysis and understanding of the effects induced by different modes of support on haemodynamic and energetic variables [4,5,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

“…The purpose of this study was to explore the use of the CARDIOSIM© software (version 8.2.1) platform [19,26] to simulate the effects induced by the simultaneous administration of drugs, the activation of the IABP and the left ventricular assist device (LVAD), Impella 2.5 (Abiomed Europe GmbH, Aachen, Germany), on cardiovascular haemodynamic and energetic variables [4]. The features of CARDIOSIM© allow IABP support to be driven from full (1:1) to partial (1:2, 1:3 and 1:4).…”