In Europe alone, approximately 3 million heart catheters are performed every year. While about one third of these cases represent coronary artery disease and benefit from the procedure, the remaining cases suffer from small vessel disease or do not represent coronary disease. Thus, an estimated 2 million heart catheters are performed every year with the related risks of this invasive procedure and high costs to the healthcare system. 

Fractal analysis is a technology to non-invasively assess a patient’s disease based on medical images prior to an invasive procedure and determine if the patient really needs it. Building on the characteristics of self-similarity and scale-invariance, this technology can be used to analyze patterns of blood supply, thereby for instance separating coronary artery disease from small vessel disease. Fractal analysis technology promises to enable new diagnoses and inform therapy choice also beyond heart disease, e.g., for breast, liver, and prostate cancer.

The team, consisting of highly experienced radiologists and researchers, has developed working prototypes and achieved proof of concept, is pursuing patent protection, and is clinically validating the technology across potential fields of application.