Comparison of fractional flow reserve value of patient-specific left anterior descending artery using 1D and 3D CFD analysis

Abstract

Coronary heart disease is a primary source of mortality in India and around the globe. There are different types of disease state, but the primary focus of this study is on the disease where there is a narrowing down of the lumen area in the blood vessel. The left anterior descending artery is under investigation, which is a part of the left coronary artery, and it delivers the heart muscles with blood. The stenosed coronary artery impedes the blood flow and triggers heart failure. In a mild situation, medicine can be prescribed, but in severe cases, surgery is required. The cases which fall between mild and severe are a dilemma to the doctor for taking clinical decisions. The fractional flow reserve (FFR) tells us about the functional acuteness of stenosed coronary artery in this situation. The patient-specific left anterior descending artery of a human arterial tree is numerically investigated based on computational fluid dynamics approach for quantifying the functional acuteness of stenosis in terms of FFR. The CAD models of patient-specific geometries are generated from multislice computed tomographic scan data obtained from various Indian patients. The simulation of the 3D model is done using finite volume-based solver in OpenFOAM. Similarly, the 1D stenosed artery is generated using an analytical equation, and the solution is obtained using locally conservative Galerkin method. A comparative study of FFR between 3D and 1D models is carried out in this study, and a correlation is proposed among 3D FFR, 1D FFR and different geometric attributes.