Fundamental mechanics of aortic heart valve closure.

Stresses in a prosthetic heart valve at closure are determined by its geometrical and structural characteristics, by the mechanical support environment, and by the momentum of the valve leaflets or occluder and of the blood at the instant of closure. The mass of blood to be arrested is significantly greater than that of the leaflets or occluder, and is therefore likely to dominate the closure impulse. The kinetic energy of the blood must be transduced into potential energy in the structural components (valve leaflets, aortic root and aorta). This paper presents a methodology for computation and parameterisation of the blood momentum associated with a valve in the aortic position. It is suggested that the influence of physiological parameters, such as systolic waveform and systemic impedance, on the closure characteristics can be investigated based on the fluid dynamic implications. Detailed results are presented for a single leaflet mechanical valve (Bjork-Shiley 60 degrees Convexo-Concave). It is demonstrated that a simple analytical method can yield results that might be adequate for the purposes of valve design.

Evaluation of the hemodynamic effectiveness of aortic dissection treatments via virtual stenting.

Aortic dissection treatment varies for each patient and stenting is one of a number of approaches that are utilized to Stabilize the condition. Information regarding the hemodynamic forces in the aorta in dissected and virtually stented cases could support clinicians in their choices of treatment prior to medical intervention. Computational fluid dynamics coupled with lumped parameter models have shown promise in providing detailed information that could be used in the clinic; for this, it is necessary to develop personalized workflows in order to produce patient-specific simulations. In the present study, a case of pre- and post-stenting (virtual stent-graft) of an aortic dissection is investigated with a particular focus on the role of personalized boundary conditions. For each virtual case, velocity, pressure, energy loss, and wall shear stress values are evaluated and compared. The simulated single stent-graft only marginally reduced the pulse pressure and systemic energy loss. The double stent-graft results showed a larger reduction in pulse pressure and a 40% reduction in energy loss as well as a more physiological wall shear stress distribution.Regions of potential risk were highlighted. The methodology applied in the present study revealed detailed information about two possible surgical outcome cases and shows promise as both a diagnostic and an interventional tool.

Numerical simulation of the fluid structure interactions in a compliant patient-specific arteriovenous fistula.

The objective of the study is to investigate numerically the fluid-structure interactions (FSI) in a patient-specific arteriovenous fistula (AVF) and analyze the degree of complexity that such a numerical simulation requires to provide clinically relevant information. The reference FSI simulation takes into account the non-Newtonian behavior of blood, as well as the variation in mechanical properties of the vascular walls along the AVF. We have explored whether less comprehensive versions of the simulation could still provide relevant results. The non-Newtonian blood model is necessary to predict the hemodynamics in the AVF because of the predominance of low shear rates in the vein. An uncoupled fluid simulation provides informative qualitative maps of the hemodynamic conditions in the AVF; quantitatively, the hemodynamic parameters are accurate within 20% maximum. Conversely, an uncoupled structural simulation with non-uniform wall properties along the vasculature provides the accurate distribution of internal wall stresses, but only at one instant of time within the cardiac cycle. The FSI simulation advantageously provides the time-evolution of both the hemodynamic and structural stresses. However, the higher computational cost renders a clinical use still difficult in routine.

Investigating the influence of haemodynamic stimuli on intracranial aneurysm inception.

We propose a novel method to reconstruct the hypothetical geometry of the healthy vasculature prior to intracranial aneurysm (IA) formation: a Frenet frame is calculated along the skeletonization of the arterial geometry; upstream and downstream boundaries of the aneurysmal segment are expressed in terms of the local Frenet frame basis vectors; the hypothetical healthy geometry is then reconstructed by propagating a closed curve along the skeleton using the local Frenet frames so that the upstream boundary is smoothly morphed into the downstream boundary. This methodology takes into account the tortuosity of the arterial vasculature and requires minimal user subjectivity. The method is applied to 22 clinical cases depicting IAs. Computational fluid dynamic simulations of the vasculature without IA are performed and the haemodynamic stimuli in the location of IA formation are examined. We observe that locally elevated wall shear stress (WSS) and gradient oscillatory number (GON) are highly correlated (20/22 for WSS and 19/22 for GON) with regions susceptible to sidewall IA formation whilst haemodynamic indices associated with the oscillation of the WSS vectors have much lower correlations.