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Morphometry-Based Impedance Boundary Conditions for Patient-Specific Modeling of Blood Flow in Pulmonary Arteries

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Abstract

Patient-specific computational models could aid in planning interventions to relieve pulmonary arterial stenoses common in many forms of congenital heart disease. We describe a new approach to simulate blood flow in subject-specific models of the pulmonary arteries that consists of a numerical model of the proximal pulmonary arteries created from three-dimensional medical imaging data with terminal impedance boundary conditions derived from linear wave propagation theory applied to morphometric models of distal vessels. A tuning method, employing numerical solution methods for nonlinear systems of equations, was developed to modify the distal vasculature to match measured pressure and flow distribution data. One-dimensional blood flow equations were solved with a finite element method in image-based pulmonary arterial models using prescribed inlet flow and morphometry-based impedance at the outlets. Application of these methods in a pilot study of the effect of removal of unilateral pulmonary arterial stenosis induced in a pig showed good agreement with experimental measurements for flow redistribution and main pulmonary arterial pressure. Next, these methods were applied to a patient with repaired tetralogy of Fallot and predicted insignificant hemodynamic improvement with relief of the stenosis. This method of coupling image-based and morphometry-based models could enable increased fidelity in pulmonary hemodynamic simulation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dr. Mary T. Draney and the staff of the Richard M. Lucas Center for Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Imaging for assistance with the porcine experiment. This work was supported by the Vera Moulton Wall Center for Pulmonary Vascular Disease and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0205741. Ryan Spilker was supported by the Benchmark Capital Fellowship in Congenital Cardiovascular Bioengineering at Stanford University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Clark Center E350B, 318 Campus Drive, Stanford, CA, 94305-5431, USA

    Ryan L. Spilker, David W. Parker & Charles A. Taylor

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Jeffrey A. Feinstein & Charles A. Taylor

  3. Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    V. Mohan Reddy

  4. Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Charles A. Taylor

  5. Department of Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Charles A. Taylor

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  1. Ryan L. Spilker
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  2. Jeffrey A. Feinstein
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  4. V. Mohan Reddy
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  5. Charles A. Taylor
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Correspondence to Charles A. Taylor.

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Spilker, R.L., Feinstein, J.A., Parker, D.W. et al. Morphometry-Based Impedance Boundary Conditions for Patient-Specific Modeling of Blood Flow in Pulmonary Arteries. Ann Biomed Eng 35, 546–559 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-006-9240-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-006-9240-3

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