Ansys joins VPHOP consortium

Ansys, a global innovator of simulation software and technologies, is to participate in the Osteoporotic Virtual Physiological Human Project (VPHOP), launched last autumn by a European consortium.

VPHOP aims to develop medical technologies to predict the patient-specific risk of osteoporosis and bone fracture, while improving diagnosis and treatment.

Software from Ansys will be used to simulate the variety of structural and fluid flow dynamics within the human anatomy based on the project’s collection of anatomical, physiological and pathological data.

Marco Viceconti, coordinator of VPHOP, said: ‘Current approaches to fracture risk assessment oversimplify what is an extremely complex and multifaceted problem.’

He said these approaches are only 60-70% accurate, but by applying the latest technology and using the analysis procedures that are in development, VPHOP believes it will be able substantially to improve this figure.

Running for four years until 2012, the consortium of 19 European organisations, including Ansys France, will enable clinicians to provide accurate prognoses and implement more effective treatment strategies based on both drug treatments and forms of direct intervention treatment. A searchable database will be developed as part of this collaboration, which could later be used for any patient-specific modelling for applications ranging from osteoporosis to cardiovascular disease to cerebral aneurysm.