The goal of the project is to develop fundamental science, knowledge, tools, and technologies for smart diagnosis and monitoring of heart conditions based on automated cardiac auscultation. An innovative wearable multimodal acoustic array (the StethoVest) is proposed. This sensory array localizes and separates acoustic broadband sources in space by measuring spatial and temporal derivatives of the acoustic field. Using this StethoVest, first-of-their-kind maps of the cardiac acousteome are generated. These maps include not only 4D (3D space and time) measurements of heart sounds; they are accompanied by high-fidelity hemoacoustic simulations that delineate cause-and-effect, as well as simulation-guided source-identification algorithms that provide unprecedented diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. The simulations take cardiac imaging data as input, and simulate cardiac blood flow as well as the associated heart sounds. The latter part of this four-year project focuses on investigating the physics of aortic valve murmurs as well as StethoVest based screening for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy.
Annual national expenditure on heart disease exceeds half a trillion dollars with over half a million deaths attributed to this disease each year. The proposed research leverages emerging capabilities in biosensing, computational modeling, imaging and signal processing, to produce a diagnostic technology that moves us away from management of heart disease that is mostly reactive, expensive and hospital-centric, towards an approach that is smart, proactive, patient-centric and cost-effective. The sound inventory generated from continuous, automated monitoring and interpretation of heart sounds has the potential to generate unprecedented understanding of human physiology. The project promotes interdisciplinary education and workforce development through involvement of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs in the research, development of courses and clinical training tools, and local and international outreach activities.
