Branch pulmonary artery virtual stenting for hemodynamic correction in children and adults with congenital heart disease

Branch pulmonary artery stenting for vessel stenosis is a common catheter procedure in congenital heart disease. While enlargement of the vessel is seen in most patients, only 75-85% of patients show a clinical improvement, suggesting not all patients benefit equally. The intervention aims to increase blood flow to the affected lung and to improve right and left heart function for the long term. By predicting the potential improvement in haemodynamics this patient group can be presented with a quantifiable benefit in their exercise capacity as well as the potential benefit to their heart for the longer term.
This project will explore computational flows to identify the patients most likely to benefit from this procedure and quantify the haemodynamic improvement in pulmonary flow. Novel methods developed and validated for personalised computational haemodynamic and virtual stenting will enable prediction and comparative hemodynamic changes in different interventional scenarios. We will develop techniques for anatomical reconstruction from pre-operative CT and MRI, virtually deploy innovative stent designs, and explore sensitivity to personalised boundary conditions.
This project will develop methods to include multisource information into an integrated computational haemodynamic model and quantify the uncertainty associated to treatment and modelling assumptions. We will use cardiac MR imaging including 4D flow MRI data alongside invasive pressure measurements from patients acquired before and after the procedure to create and validate the model.

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