12 Labours Seminar Series (Exemplar Project 1): Pulmonary hypertension

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a debilitating and progressive disease that can occur idiopathically or secondary to other chronic disease. PH is classified into five groups based on aetiology and mechanisms. In general, it involves progressive remodelling of the pulmonary circulation and right heart, and abnormally high blood pressures. 12 Labours’ Exemplar Project 1 is developing a cardio-respiratory model linked with a whole body circulation model, to simulate pre- and post-capillary PH. The vision is to provide a patient-specific model that is carefully calibrated to clinical imaging and physiological measurements to test potential diagnostic and treatment strategies, but that also reduces to a pragmatic form for real-time whole-body simulations to monitor patient physiological signals in the home. Our initial studies will establish a clinical modelling workflow to evaluate post-treatment cardio-respiratory function in patients for whom surgical treatment is an option. This will provide a proof-of-concept imaging and data to modelling platform that we will extend to other groups of PH.