Effects of Transcatheter Intervention on Hemodynamics of Coarctation of the Aorta

Abstract

Coarctation of the aorta (CoA) is a congenital heart disease in which the aorta witnesses localized obstruction. CoA can be fatal if left untreated. Endovascular stenting of CoA is an attractive treatment of choice in adolescents and adults; however, it can be associated with problems like stent malapposition and inappropriate stent expansion. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of stent implantation on the hemodynamic factors in a patient with mild coarctation. Computational fluid dynamics was utilized to illustrate the hemodynamic factors like velocity distribution, wall shear stress, and trans-coarctation pressure drop in pre- and post-intervention states. These factors were used to assess the success of stent deployment in this patient. Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model is employed in this work to provide detailed information on hemodynamics in patient-specific preand post-intervention geometries of the aorta. The results of an in-house lumped parameter code, in which its input parameters are obtained from patient-specific clinical data, were applied as the boundary conditions in this study.