A Patient-Specific Morphoelastic Growth Model of Aortic Dissection Evolution
Khabaz, K.; Kim, J.; Milner, R.; Nguyen, N.; Pocivavsek, L.
Show abstract
The human aorta undergoes complex morphologic changes that indicate the evolution of disease. Finite element analysis enables the prediction of aortic pathologic states, but the absence of a biomechanical understanding hinders the applicability of this computational tool. We incorporate geometric information from computed tomography angiography (CTA) imaging scans into finite element analysis (FEA) to predict a trajectory of future geometries for four aortic disease patients. Through defining a geometric correspondence between two patient scans separated in time, a patient-specific FEA model can recreate the deformation of the aorta between the two time points, showing pathologic growth drives morphologic heterogeneity. A shape-size geometric feature space plotting the variance of the shape index versus the inverse square root of aortic surface area ({delta}[S] vs. [Formula]) quantitatively demonstrates the simulated breakdown in aortic shape. An increase in {delta}[S] closely parallels the true geometric progression of aortic disease patients.
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