Authors:
Seda Aslan
1
;
Xiaolong Liu
1
;
Qiyuan Wu
1
;
Paige Mass
2
;
Yue-Hin Loke
2
;
Narutoshi Hibino
3
;
Laura Olivieri
2
and
Axel Krieger
1
Affiliations:
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, U.S.A.
;
2
Division of Cardiology, Children’s National Hospital, Washington DC, U.S.A.
;
3
Section of Cardiac Surgery, Department of Surgery, The University of Chicago Medicine, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.
Keyword(s):
Virtual Aorta Repair, Coarctation of Aorta, Transverse Arch Hypoplasia, Computational Fluid Dynamics.
Abstract:
Coarctation of aorta (CoA) is a congenital heart disease that may coexist with transverse arch hypoplasia (TAH). Infants who suffer from both conditions are often treated only for CoA at the initial repair if the degree of TAH is diagnosed as mild. In this study, we investigated the effect of virtually repairing the CoA of three patients (n=3) who also suffer from TAH. We repaired the CoA by using virtual stents that were modeled based on descending aorta diameters of the patients. Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, we investigated the changes in time-averaged wall shear stress (TAWSS) after the virtual repair and calculated the peak systolic pressure drop (PSPD), which is the indicator of the performance of the repair. The magnitude of TAWSS was reduced in the repaired CoA regions in all the patients. The PSPD was improved in two patients, remaining above 20 mmHg in one of them. There was no significant change in PSPD for one patient after the virtual repair. The
results may potentially help clinicians to gain better insights into whether the CoA repair alone in patients with existing TAH is sufficient.
(More)