Gosselin Marie-Christine, Neufeld Esra, Moser Heidi, Huber Eveline, Farcito Silvia, Gerber Livia, Jedensjö Maria, Hilber Isabel, Di Gennaro Fabienne, Lloyd Bryn, Cherubini Emilio, Szczerba Dominik, Kainz Wolfgang, Kuster Niels
Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society (IT'IS), Zeughausstrasse 43, 8004 Zurich, Switzerland. ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Phys Med Biol. 2014 Sep 21;59(18):5287-303. doi: 10.1088/0031-9155/59/18/5287. Epub 2014 Aug 21.
The Virtual Family computational whole-body anatomical human models were originally developed for electromagnetic (EM) exposure evaluations, in particular to study how absorption of radiofrequency radiation from external sources depends on anatomy. However, the models immediately garnered much broader interest and are now applied by over 300 research groups, many from medical applications research fields. In a first step, the Virtual Family was expanded to the Virtual Population to provide considerably broader population coverage with the inclusion of models of both sexes ranging in age from 5 to 84 years old. Although these models have proven to be invaluable for EM dosimetry, it became evident that significantly enhanced models are needed for reliable effectiveness and safety evaluations of diagnostic and therapeutic applications, including medical implants safety. This paper describes the research and development performed to obtain anatomical models that meet the requirements necessary for medical implant safety assessment applications. These include implementation of quality control procedures, re-segmentation at higher resolution, more-consistent tissue assignments, enhanced surface processing and numerous anatomical refinements. Several tools were developed to enhance the functionality of the models, including discretization tools, posing tools to expand the posture space covered, and multiple morphing tools, e.g., to develop pathological models or variations of existing ones. A comprehensive tissue properties database was compiled to complement the library of models. The results are a set of anatomically independent, accurate, and detailed models with smooth, yet feature-rich and topologically conforming surfaces. The models are therefore suited for the creation of unstructured meshes, and the possible applications of the models are extended to a wider range of solvers and physics. The impact of these improvements is shown for the MRI exposure of an adult woman with an orthopedic spinal implant. Future developments include the functionalization of the models for specific physical and physiological modeling tasks.
虚拟家庭计算全身解剖人体模型最初是为电磁（EM）暴露评估而开发的，特别是用于研究来自外部源的射频辐射吸收如何依赖于解剖结构。然而，这些模型立即引起了更广泛的关注，现在有300多个研究小组在应用，其中许多来自医学应用研究领域。第一步，虚拟家庭扩展为虚拟人群，通过纳入年龄从5岁到84岁的男女模型，提供了更广泛的人群覆盖。尽管这些模型已被证明对电磁剂量学非常宝贵，但很明显，对于诊断和治疗应用（包括医疗植入物安全性）的可靠有效性和安全性评估，需要显著增强的模型。本文描述了为获得满足医疗植入物安全评估应用所需要求的解剖模型而进行的研发工作。这些工作包括实施质量控制程序、以更高分辨率重新分割、更一致的组织分配、增强的表面处理以及众多解剖学细化。开发了几种工具来增强模型的功能，包括离散化工具、用于扩展所覆盖姿势空间的摆姿工具以及多种变形工具，例如用于开发病理模型或现有模型的变体。编制了一个全面的组织特性数据库来补充模型库。结果是一组解剖学上独立、准确且详细的模型，具有光滑但特征丰富且拓扑一致的表面。因此，这些模型适用于创建非结构化网格，并且模型的可能应用扩展到更广泛的求解器和物理领域。针对一名患有骨科脊柱植入物的成年女性的磁共振成像暴露，展示了这些改进的影响。未来的发展包括针对特定物理和生理建模任务对模型进行功能化。
