The PAtient Specific Simulation and PreOperative Realistic Training for liver surgery (PASSPORT) project is to further develop the work on virtual liver initially carried out by the EUREKA Project named 'Odysseus'.

The PASSPORT project aims via the further development of the Virtual Liver to improve the prospects of recovery for patients with diseases such as liver cancer and cirrhosis of the liver that kill around 90 000 people in Europe every year.

Doctors currently use two-dimensional (2D) images to diagnose whether to completely remove the diseased tissue, while ensuring that the patient still has enough healthy liver tissue to survive. However, interpreting these 2D images is rather difficult, as is their examination and analysis with other experts, who are not present in person.

This is where the Odysseus project turned into a great help. Not only had it developed software that can generate a three-dimensional (3D) image of a patient's liver but also allowed it to be shared by experts in different locations. The software provides doctors with detailed information on the shape of the patient's liver and the location of blood vessels in the organ. These details should lead to an increase in the number of patients who are considered eligible for surgery and help doctors plan their operations. The 3D modelling software reveals that in fact up to 50 % of patients have a liver structure that differs markedly from that of the old model. 

In this regard, the Professor of the French Research Institute against Digestive Cancer ('Institut de Recherche contre les Cancers de l'Appareil Digestif'- IRCAD) stated that "thanks to the 3D modelling, the future of liver surgery has gained more precision through accurate definition of the liver's blood vessels."

Two mimic simulators even allow surgeons to practice the planned surgery on the virtual liver before operating on the patient. Users comment that it is hard to tell the difference between the simulator images and photographs of surgery, with the texture and resistance of liver tissue being so close to the real one. The simulators can also be used to train surgeons.

PASSPORT - funded with €3.6 million under the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Theme of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) - will add biological, mechanical, dynamic and appearance information to the geometric model developed by Odysseus. The project partners have already made improvements to the software and have made it freely available on the Internet.

 Further information:

• Original news article - European Commission - CORDIS
  
• EUREKA project
• Odysseus
• PASSPORT project
• Research Institute against Digestive Cancer (in French)