Fluid-dynamic modeling of the human left ventricle: methodology and application to surgical ventricular reconstruction.

Background: The efficacy of surgical ventricular reconstruction (SVR) for ischemic cardiomyopathy has never been truly quantified. Methods to assess ventricular flow have not been applied to these patients. The objective is to develop a volume-independent technique for assessing the effects of ischemic remodeling and SVR on left ventricular blood flow dynamics.

MRI-based CFD analysis of flow in a human left ventricle: methodology and application to a healthy heart.

A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method has been developed to simulate the flow in a pumping left ventricle. The proposed method uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to provide a patient specific, time dependent geometry of the ventricle to be simulated. Standard clinical imaging procedures were used in this study.