Simulation of Carotid Artery Bifurcations

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The Anatomic Engineering Simulation of Carotid Artery Bifurcations Using CFD Technique

Among all diseases, Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of mortality (about 33%) in the US. In 2012, the incidence of CVD in adults aged>20 years was 35% and about 800000 deaths were attributed to CVD. While improvements in diagnosis and treatment have led to improved outcomes and reduced rate of mortality since the 1970s, other trends associated with CVD point to a troubling future. Heart disease also has a positive correlation with obesity and since 1980, the percentage of adults aged 20-74 who are considered clinically obese, has doubled to more than 30%. CVD also has a positive correlation with diabetes, the incidence of which is also growing steadily with time. Additionally, CVD ranks highest in terms of national healthcare expense with close to half a trillion dollars spent on this in 2010; this is more than twice the health expenditures on cancer, which is the next most expensive disease.

Since cardiovascular disease is intimately linked to cardiovascular hemodynamics, accurate assessment of the patient’s hemodynamic state is critical for the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease. Unfortunately, while a variety of invasive and noninvasive approaches for measuring cardiac hemodynamics are in widespread use, they still only provide an incomplete picture of the hemodynamic state of the patient. Therefore, computational modeling of cardiac hemodynamics presents as a powerful non-invasive modality that can fill this gap, and significantly impact the diagnosis as well as treatment of cardiac disease, computing, modeling and simulation challenge and play a key role in cardiovascular health future development. Computational modeling of cardiac flows could be developed to enhance existing diagnostic procedures as well as to assess options in treatment and cardiac surgery. In terms of the former, computational modeling could for instance, improve stratification of risk for left- ventricular thermogenesis in infarcted ventricles, and a comprehensive analysis of the physics of heart murmurs enabled by computational models could lead to more effective automated cardiac techniques.