Dobutamine stress testing in patients with Fontan circulation augmented by biomechanical modeling.

Understanding (patho)physiological phenomena and mechanisms of failure in patients with Fontan circulation-a surgically established circulation for patients born with a functionally single ventricle-remains challenging due to the complex hemodynamics and high inter-patient variations in anatomy and function. In this work, we present a biomechanical model of the heart and circulation to augment the diagnostic evaluation of Fontan patients with early-stage heart failure. The proposed framework employs a reduced-order model of heart coupled with a simplified circulation including venous return, creating a closed-loop system.