Patient-specific computational fluid dynamics: structured mesh generation from coronary angiography

Med Biol Eng Comput. 2010 Apr;48(4):371-80. doi: 10.1007/s11517-010-0583-4. Epub 2010 Feb 17.

Abstract

Patient-specific simulations are widely used to investigate the local hemodynamics within realistic morphologies. However, pre-processing and mesh generation are time consuming, operator dependent, and the quality of the resulting mesh is often suboptimal. Therefore, a semi-automatic methodology for patient-specific reconstruction and structured meshing of a left coronary tree from biplane angiography is presented. Seven hexahedral grids have been generated with the new method (50,000-3,200,000 cells) and compared to nine unstructured tetrahedral grids with prismatic boundary layer (150,000-3,100,000 cells). Steady-state blood flow simulation using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been used to calculate the Wall Shear Stress (WSS). Our results (99 percentile, area-weighted and local WSS values along a line) demonstrate that hexahedral meshes with respect to tetrahedral/prismatic meshes converge better, and for the same accuracy of the result, six times less cells and 14 times less computational time are required. Hexahedral meshes are superior to tetrahedral/prismatic meshes and should be preferred for the calculation of the WSS.

MeSH terms

  • Coronary Angiography / methods*
  • Coronary Artery Disease / diagnostic imaging*
  • Coronary Artery Disease / physiopathology
  • Hemorheology
  • Humans
  • Hydrodynamics
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / methods
  • Models, Cardiovascular*