Simulation of flow in an artery under pathological hemodynamic conditions: The use of a diagnostic disease descriptor

Abstract

A numerical model for simulating and predicting blood flow dynamics in diseased arterial vessels has been developed. The time-dependent one-dimensional hyperbolic system of quasilinear partial differential equations which incorporates a diagnostic disease descriptor (kD) was used to simulate transient flow distribution for idealized healthy and diseased states. Blood flow simulations in the iliac arteries over about 125% of a cardiac cycle were generated and calibrated using the kD values from 0 to 3 representing hypothetical diseased states. Early results indicate that disease conditions induce abnormal flow in the artery, generating disorder and increased amplitude of blood pressure, flow and distensibility with increasing numerical values of the disease factor kD. More so, the prospective use of the kD-approach with documentation of in vivo adverse flow visualizations for diagnostic purposes was decisively discussed.