Turbulent blood dynamics in the left heart in the presence of mitral regurgitation: a computational study based on multi-series cine-MRI.

In this work, we performed a computational image-based study of blood dynamics in the whole left heart, both in a healthy subject and in a patient with mitral valve regurgitation. We elaborated multi-series cine-MRI with the aim of reconstructing the geometry and the corresponding motion of left ventricle, left atrium, mitral and aortic valves, and aortic root of the subjects. This allowed us to prescribe such motion to computational blood dynamics simulations where, for the first time, the whole left heart motion of the subject is considered, allowing us to obtain reliable subject-specific information.

Fluid-structure interaction analysis of transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is a minimally invasive intervention for the treatment of severe aortic valve stenosis. The main cause of failure is the structural deterioration of the implanted prosthetic leaflets, possibly inducing a valvular re-stenosis 5-10 years after the implantation. Based solely on pre-implantation data, the aim of this work is to identify fluid-dynamics and structural indices that may predict the possible valvular deterioration, in order to assist the clinicians in the decision-making phase and in the intervention design.