Pathological Human Heart: Numerical Approach to Characterize the Blood Flow.

In order to improve the diagnosis and therapy of human heart diseases, the KAHMO (KArlsruhe Heart MOdel), a patient-specific numerical model of the human heart has been developed. KAHMO consists of the left and right ventricle, the adjacent vessels and the cardiac valves. The movement of the ventricular geometry is prescribed by segmentation from MRI recording sets. Starting from these MRI data sets topologically identical grids for each MRI trigger step are generated. During the simulation a third order approximation between these grids is performed. Blood is regarded incompressible and Non-Newtonian. The simulations were performed using a commercial Navier-Stokes finite-volume (FVM) code (STAR-CD®). With the unsteady boundary conditions provided by a circulation model, the simulations have revealed the three dimensional fluid structures in a healthy human heart as well as in a pathological human left ventricle. For the first time, not only the modified blood flow in the left ventricle but also the flow in the right ventricle was considered. By identifying the changes between the three dimensional flow patterns of the healthy and the pathological human heart, a major opportunity for planning ventricular surgeries is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]