The 1st International Conference on Computational Simulation in Congenital Heart Disease (CSCHD 2010) will be held in La Jolla (San Diego), California in February 2010. This meeting, the first of its kind in this arena, will bring together researchers in both engineering and medicine for a two day workshop that will include both research and educational components. The meeting will focus on the application of novel computational and engineering methods to problems in congenital heart disease with an eye towards improved understanding and treatment paradigms. This meeting will be a unique opportunity for clinicians and engineers to attend the same conference, which is not typically the case in large professional society meetings. The meeting will expose both engineers and clinicians to cutting edge research, which, in turn, will lead to an increase in the physiologic and clinical realism of simulations, and an increase in adoption of simulation methods by clinicians.
On February 26 and 27, 2010 the 1st International Conference on Computational Simulation in Congenital Heart Disease (CS-CHD 2010) was held in La Jolla (San Diego), California. This meeting was the first of its kind in the field of modeling in pediatric cardiology. It brought together students and experts in the fields of engineering and medicine for two days of presentations, discussions and brainstorming sessions. The inclusion of both engineers and clinicians in a single small meeting is unusual in the field, and it led to many useful discussions and questions, as well as new collaborative opportunities. The meeting was a big success, with broad participation, a special journal issue, and plans to continue on an annual basis. Congenital heart disease is a field that lends itself well to computational simulation and patient-specific modeling because of the wide range of anatomies among patients and the need for individually customized surgical procedures. Simulations have impacted the progression of surgical techniques in the field, beginning with pioneering work of de Leval and colleagues (some of whom will be in attendance) which led to the adoption of the so-called "offset" technique in the Fontan surgery. Despite the recent progress in modeling capabilities, there is substantial room to increase the clinical impact of simulations in the clinical setting. In addition, most of the computational modeling work in congenital heart disease has focused on a single surgery (the Fontan surgery to treat single-ventricle heart patients), despite a wide range of other surgeries that stand to benefit from simulation studies. The aims of this work shop were to 1) to broaden the applicability of simulations in congenital heart disease to new surgeries that have not previously been studied via simulations, 2) to educate researchers in the field about new developments in simulation, imaging, intervention and devices, 3) to increase the clinical relevance of simulation work, and 4) to create networking and collaboration opportunities that will move the field forward. The initial funding provided by the NSF for this meeting was essential for meeting the above goals. The result was the creation of a new annual meeting in this field with broad participation from all leading groups working in this area.
