Mechanical modeling of a beating heart for a cardiac palpation training system

In cardiac plastic surgery, the cardiac surgeon touches the cardiac muscle to diagnose the patient's heart that may be diseased due to infarction or dilate cardiomyopathy to determine the regions where it needs plastic surgery. In other words, the cardiac surgeon needs to recognize the mechanical characteristics of the thin muscle regions by the haptic sensitivity of his/her fingertips. Cardiac images available before cardiac surgery could enable a qualitative estimation of the patient's heart. However, cardiac palpation is the only accurate way for making surgical plans for ventricular plastic surgery in the operating theater. Since young inexperienced cardiac surgeons have few occasions to perform cardiac palpation, even in operation cases, a cardiac palpation training system is highly desired. The training system for a cardiac palpation system we have developed consists of a virtual heart based on human left ventricular magnetic resonance images and a one-dimensional manipulator as a haptic device. Mec...