Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) are used to analyse blood flowing in the cardiovascular district where the prosthetic valve is going to be implanted. These simulations provide clinicians results that could be preoperatively useful to predict surgical outcomes, assisting them in the decision-making process and highlighting possible post-operative complications.
Our CompMech group members Donato D’Aprile and Prof. Simone Morganti, in collaboration with the Department of Clinical and Interventional Cardiology of the IRCCS Policlinico San Donato headed by Dr. Bedogni, in particular with the support of Dr. Riccardo Gorla and Dr. Nedy Brambilla, performed with the commercial Software Ansys, a CFD simulation of a Patient-Specific TAVI implant to forecast the formation of Paravalvular Leak (PVL). This regurgitation problem is caused by faulty adhesion of the stent to the aortic wall in patients with several calcifications.
After the reconstruction of the fluid domain, we performed the analysis and measured the dimension of PVL areas considering the transverse plane under the native annulus in diastolic configuration. This approach makes it possible to evaluate the severity of PVL in the clinical case, following the guidelines provided by the cardiologists.
Fig. 1: The patient-specific components resulting from a post-implant structural simulation were used to obtain the fluid domain on which we performed the fluid-dynamic simulation. The result allows us to measure the dimension of the PVL area and estimate the severity of the clinical case.
June 16, 2022