Aortic dissection (AD) is a vascular condition with high morbidity and mortality rates. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can provide insight into the progression of AD and aid clinical decisions; however, oversimplified modelling assumptions and high computational cost compromise the accuracy of the information and impede clinical translation. To overcome these limitations, a patient-specific CFD multi-scale approach coupled to Windkessel boundary conditions and accounting for wall compliance was developed and used to study a patient with AD. A new moving boundary algorithm was implemented to capture wall displacement and a rich in vivo clinical dataset was used to tune model parameters and for validation. Comparisons between in silico and in vivo data showed that this approach successfully captures flow and pressure waves for the patient-specific AD and is able to predict the pressure in the false lumen (FL), a critical variable for the clinical management of the condition. Results showed regions of low and oscillatory wall shear stress which, together with higher diastolic pressures predicted in the FL, may indicate risk of expansion. This study, at the interface of engineering and medicine, demonstrates a relatively simple and computationally efficient approach to account for arterial deformation and wave propagation phenomena in a three-dimensional model of AD, representing a step forward in the use of CFD as a potential tool for AD management and clinical support.

The optimal treatment of Type-B aortic dissection (AD) is still a subject of debate, with up to 50% of the cases developing late-term complications requiring invasive intervention. A better understanding of the patient-specific haemodynamic features of AD can provide useful insights on disease progression and support clinical management. In this work, a novel in vitro and in silico framework to perform personalised studies of AD, informed by non-invasive clinical data, is presented. A Type-B AD was investigated in silico using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and in vitro by means of a state-of-the-art mock circulatory loop and particle image velocimetry (PIV). Both models not only reproduced the anatomical features of the patient, but also imposed physiologically-accurate and personalised boundary conditions. Experimental flow rate and pressure waveforms, as well as detailed velocity fields acquired via PIV, are extensively compared against numerical predictions at different locations in the aorta, showing excellent agreement. This work demonstrates how experimental and numerical tools can be developed in synergy to accurately reproduce patient-specific AD blood flow. The combined platform presented herein constitutes a powerful tool for advanced haemodynamic studies for a range of vascular conditions, allowing not only the validation of CFD models, but also clinical decision support, surgical planning as well as medical device innovation.

Aortic dissection (AD) is a complex and highly patient-specific vascular condition difficult to treat. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can aid the medical management of this pathology, yet its modelling and simulation are challenging. One aspect usually disregarded when modelling AD is the motion of the vessel wall, which has been shown to significantly impact simulation results. Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) methods are difficult to implement and are subject to assumptions regarding the mechanical properties of the vessel wall, which cannot be retrieved non-invasively. This paper presents a simplified 'moving-boundary method' (MBM) to account for the motion of the vessel wall in type-B AD CFD simulations, which can be tuned with non-invasive clinical images (e.g. 2D cine-MRI). The method is firstly validated against the 1D solution of flow through an elastic straight tube; it is then applied to a type-B AD case study and the results are compared to a state-of-the-art, full FSI simulation. Results show that the proposed method can capture the main effects due to the wall motion on the flow field: the average relative difference between flow and pressure waves obtained with the FSI and MBM simulations was less than 1.8% and 1.3%, respectively and the wall shear stress indices were found to have a similar distribution. Moreover, compared to FSI, MBM has the advantage to be less computationally expensive (requiring half of the time of an FSI simulation) and easier to implement, which are important requirements for clinical translation.

Patient-specific computational fluid-dynamics (CFD) can assist the clinical decision-making process for Type-B aortic dissection (AD) by providing detailed information on the complex intra-aortic haemodynamics. This study presents a new approach for the implementation of personalised CFD models using non-invasive, and oftentimes minimal, datasets commonly collected for AD monitoring. An innovative way to account for arterial compliance in rigid-wall simulations using a lumped capacitor is introduced, and a parameter estimation strategy for boundary conditions calibration is proposed. The approach was tested on three complex cases of AD, and the results were successfully compared against invasive blood pressure measurements. Haemodynamic results (e.g. intraluminal pressures, flow partition between the lumina, wall shear-stress based indices) provided information that could not be obtained using imaging alone, providing insight into the state of the disease. It was noted that small tears in the distal intimal flap induce disturbed flow in both lumina. Moreover, oscillatory pressures across the intimal flap were often observed in proximity to the tears in the abdominal region, which could indicate a risk of dynamic obstruction of the true lumen. This study shows how combining commonly available clinical data with computational modelling can be a powerful tool to enhance clinical understanding of AD.

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Patient-specific computational fluid-dynamics (CFD) can assist the clinical decision-making process for Type-B aortic dissection (AD) by providing detailed information on the complex intra-aortic haemodynamics. This study presents a new approach for the implementation of personalised CFD models using non-invasive, and oftentimes minimal, datasets commonly collected for AD monitoring. An innovative way to account for arterial compliance in rigid-wall simulations using a lumped capacitor is introduced, and a parameter estimation strategy for boundary conditions calibration is proposed. The approach was tested on three complex cases of AD, and the results were successfully compared against invasive blood pressure measurements. Haemodynamics results (e.g. intraluminal pressures, flow partition between the lumina, wall shear-stress based indices) provided information that could not be obtained using imaging alone, providing insight into the state of the disease. It was noted that small tears in the distal intimal flap induce disturbed flow in both lumina. Moreover, oscillatory pressures across the intimal flap were often observed in proximity to the tears in the abdominal region, which could indicate a risk of dynamic obstruction of the true lumen.This study shows how combining commonly available clinical data with computational modelling can be a powerful tool to enhance clinical understanding of AD.

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For precision medicine to be implemented through the lens of in silico technology, it is imperative that biophysical research workflows offer insight into treatments that are specific to a particular illness and to a particular subject. The boundaries of precision medicine can be extended using multiscale, biophysics-centred workflows that consider the fundamental underpinnings of the constituents of cells and tissues and their dynamic environments. Utilising numerical techniques that can capture the broad spectrum of biological flows within complex, deformable and permeable organs and tissues is of paramount importance when considering the core prerequisites of any state-of-the-art precision medicine pipeline. In this work, a succinct breakdown of two precision medicine pipelines developed within two VPH projects are given. The first workflow is targeted on the trajectory of Alzheimer's Disease, and caters for novel hypothesis testing through a multicompartmental poroelastic model which is integrated with a high throughput imaging workflow and subject-specific blood flow variability model. The second workflow gives rise to the patient specific exploration of Aortic Dissections via a multi-scale and compliant model, harnessing imaging, CFD and dynamic boundary conditions. Results relating to the first workflow include some core outputs of the multiporoelastic modelling framework, and the representation of peri-arterial swelling and peri-venous drainage solution fields. The latter solution fields were statistically analysed for a cohort of thirty-five subjects (stratified with respect to disease status, gender and activity level). The second workflow allowed for a better understanding of complex aortic dissection cases utilising both a rigid-wall model informed by minimal and clinically common datasets as well as a moving-wall model informed by rich datasets.