Patient-specific Models for Virtual Prototyping and Vascular Surgical Planning

Arif Masud, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Usage Details

A major difficulty in performing the Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedure is the increased calcification and tortuosity of the femoral access route in the target TAVR population (70+ year-old patients). We propose a computational method for assessing the vulnerability of weakened arterial walls when subjected to additional stresses during catheterizations. We employ blood-artery interaction model that we have implemented in a highly parallel code to analyze full scale patient models. Since clinical data is statistical in nature, uncertainty in the estimation of various patient specific parameters (e.g., viscosity, density, pressure, and inflow conditions in blood, and stiffness and density in arteries) results in a relatively large number of possible combinations/events. We are requesting Blue Waters resources because of the massive parallel problems that need to be executed, in addition to optimizing the unique Variational Multiscaling feature in our code that makes it ideally suited for the Blue Waters hardware architecture. Proposed development will help make computational modeling a viable tool in clinical practice and help the cardiologists in determining optimal vascular access for TVAR patients, thereby reducing the risk of surgical complications.