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Multiphysics Modeling of the Atrial Systole under Standard Ablation Strategies

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a computational framework to compare the impact of standard ablation concepts on the mechanical performance of the atria, since different line combinations cannot be applied in practice to the same patient. For this purpuse, we coupled electro-mechano-hemodynamic mathematical models based on biophysical principles and simulate the contractile performance of the atria. We computed systolic pressures and volumes in two patient-specific atrial geometries (one of normal size and one hypertrophied) with various ablation concepts. We found that our computational model is able to detect the differences in the left atrial contractility and ejection fraction for various electrical activation sequences resulting from different ablation line combinations. We show that multiphysics modeling has the potential to quantify the hemodynamic performance of left atria for different ablation lines, which could be used as additional pre-operative clinical information for the choice of the ablation concept in the future.

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Abbreviations

LA:

Left atrium

AL:

Anterior line

AF:

Atrial fibrillation

BL:

Posterior box set

CFAE:

Complex fractionated atrial electrograms on both sites

CFAE-ant:

CFAE on the anterior site

CFAE-post:

CFAE on the posterior site

CMRT:

Cardiac magnetic resonance tomography

CT:

Computed tomography

EF:

Ejection fraction

MIL:

Mitral isthmus line

PV:

Pulmonary vein

PVI:

PV isolation

RL:

Roofline

WACA:

Wide area circumferential ablation

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Centers for Radiology of Klinikum rechts der Isar and German Heart Center, Munich, for image data used in this work. This works has partially been funded from the Institute for Advanced Study, Technical University of Munich, as part of the Focus Group “Advanced Cardiac Mechanics Emulator”.

Conflict of Interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Statement of Human Studies

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Statement of Animal Studies

No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Computational Mechanics, Technical University of Munich, Boltzmannstr. 15, 85748, Garching b. München, Germany

    Julia M. Hörmann, Cristóbal Bertoglio, Andreas Nagler, Martin R. Pfaller & Wolfgang A. Wall

  2. Deutsches Herzzentrum München, Technical University of Munich, Lazarettstr. 36, 80636, Munich, Germany

    Felix Bourier, Martin Hadamitzky & Isabel Deisenhofer

  3. Numerical Biomedicine Lab, Center for Mathematical Modeling, Universidad de Chile, Beauchef 851, Santiago, Chile

    Cristóbal Bertoglio

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  1. Julia M. Hörmann
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Correspondence to Cristóbal Bertoglio.

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Associate Editors Robert L. Abraham and Ajit P. Yoganathan oversaw the review of this article.

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Hörmann, J.M., Bertoglio, C., Nagler, A. et al. Multiphysics Modeling of the Atrial Systole under Standard Ablation Strategies. Cardiovasc Eng Tech 8, 205–218 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13239-017-0308-z

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