New Public Defence

Public Defence: Mohammad Albatat
​
​On the 11th of May 2023, MSc Mohammad Albatat at Institute of Clinical Medicine defended the thesis “Optimal Pacing Sites in Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy” for the degree of PhD (Philosophiae Doctor).

---

SummaryCardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) is used to treat dyssynchronous heart failure, by pacing the right and left ventricles and enhancing the pumping efficiency of the heart. CRT can improve survival, and quality of life, but only 60 % of the patients respond to this therapy, due to suboptimal selection criteria and the lack of acute measurement that can reliably predict the long-term response.
Utilizing sophisticated computational models, we studied the electrical and mechanical characteristics of CRT focusing on defining the optimal pacing site in the left ventricle. We investigated the impact of multisite left ventricular pacing and developed novel measures for the prediction of CRT outcomes.
The outcome of CRT is dependent on the combination of heterogeneities in the individual heart and the specifics of the CRT-stimulation setup. Our findings demonstrate that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution and that the configuration of CRT must be tailor-made for each patient. A solution that combines imaging, computational modeling, and data science has the potential to improve the decision-making process in patient selection and optimization of therapy.