Patient-Specific Hemodynamic Simulations in Coronary Artery Aneurysms Caused by Kawasaki Disease

Abstract

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute pediatric illness and the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children, with over 4,000 cases diagnosed annually in the US. The incidence of KD in San Diego County is 25/100,000 for children less than 5 years of age. In absence of a diagnostic test for KD, many patients are not diagnosed in time to receive treatment with intravenous gamma globulin. Approximately 25% of untreated patients develop large aneurysms in their coronary arteries, which puts them at risk for myocardial infarction. In this project we performed patient specific computational simulations of blood flow in aneurysmal left and right coronary arteries of a 10-year-old KD patient. Several relevant hemodynamic parameters such as wall shear stress (WSS) and recirculation time were obtained, as a first step toward developing a risk assessment tool for thrombosis in KD patients.