A Study on Blood Flow Characteristics of Hepatic Vein

Abstract

AbstractControlling postoperative course is serious problem in percutaneous transhepatic portal embolization (PTPE). The embolization changes blood flow balance in the operated liver, subsequently brings on local and overall swellings of the liver. In some cases the liver failure is occurred by the operations. In order to prevent the failure prediction method is required before the PTPE surgeries quantitatively and numerically. Recently medical image processing technologies have progressed, and we can easily obtain the detail information of human body with minimally-invasive. Such the detail information is now applied to construct three-dimensional geometric models of human body, organs and parts. This study developed numerical model for blood flow in hepatic vein; geometric model was made from patient’s CT image data before and after the PTPE (right lobe embolization) and performed Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. As a result of analysis for the case before PTPE, it was confirmed that the model developed in this study was able to predict actual blood flow balance in the first branching of hepatic vein since the tendencies of calculation and measurement results showed good agreement. Vortexes were formed in the left lobe, and their progress and disappearance were occurred alternately and continually. As for results of the case after PTPE, blood flow pattern was definitely changed compared with that before PTPE. Dead water region appeared in the right lobe, on the contrary, vortex formation was suppressed in the left. These changes arose from blood flow convergence by embolized right lobe. These results lead us knowledge of blood flow characteristics in the hepatic vein before and after PTPE. Further analysis for other PTPE cases is required to elucidate the development mechanism of liver failure.Keywordsliver transplantationpercutaneous transhepatic portal embolizationComputational Fluid Dynamicsblood flow