Virtual clinical trials are on their way

CLINICAL TRIALS are expensive, time-consuming and risky for those taking part. The hunt is therefore on for computer models good enough to replace warm bodies for at least the preliminary phases of trials. In a paper in , Alejandro Frangi of the University of Leeds, in Britain, and his colleagues have published the results of the most comprehensive such virtual trial yet attempted.Dr Frangi and his team are investigating stent-like devices called intracranial flow diverters. These control the passage of blood through brain arteries and are often used to treat cerebral aneurysms—bulges that form in an arterial wall, in which blood then accumulates. If a cerebral aneurysm bursts, it causes a so-called haemorrhagic stroke, damaging surrounding tissue by engulfing it in blood. Inserting a flow diverter directs the bloodstream away from the aneurysm, permitting blood already within the bulge to stay in place and clot, thus blocking the aneurysm up.