Real-time sensitivity analysis of blood flow simulations to lumen segmentation uncertainty.

Patient-specific modeling of blood flow combining CT image data and computational fluid dynamics has significant potential for assessing the functional significance of coronary artery disease. An accurate segmentation of the coronary arteries, an essential ingredient for blood flow modeling methods, is currently attained by a combination of automated algorithms with human review and editing. However, not all portions of the coronary artery tree affect blood flow and pressure equally, and it is of significant importance to direct human review and editing towards regions that will most affect the subsequent simulations.