Research goal

An aortic aneurysm is a life threatening disease. There is an urgent need for new biomarkers that could contribute to an earlier aneurysm detection, preferably before growth, to prevent fatal rupture. Aim of the project is to develop a multi-physics model (fluid-solid-growth) of the whole human aorta that would provide the structural (MRI) and mechanical information of the aortic wall as well as hemodynamic information, transmural pressure and oxygen concentration. Afterwards, with LUMC, define sex-specific physiological normal values and cut-off values for identifying pathological abnormalities based on new and existing data from 10-year follow-up (approx. 200 cases).

The streamtraces and contours of velocity magnitude for the Computational Fluid Dynamics model (left) compared to the results of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (right); as can be seen, the data are in a good agreement after applying the patient specific boundary conditions on all inlets and outlets

Funded by

Hartstichting