Computational simulations of fractional flow reserve variability

Abstract

Fractional flow reserve (FFR) is the golden standard for making decision on surgical treatment of coronary vessels with multiple stenosis. Clinical measurements of FFR require expensive invasive procedure with endovascular ultrasound probe. In this work a method of FFR simulation is considered. It is based on modelling 1D haemodynamics in patient-specific coronary vessels network reconstructed from CT scans. In contrast to our previous studies we used explicit minimum oscillating 2nd order characteristic method for internal nodes and 2nd order approximation of compatibility conditions for discretization of boundary conditions in junctions. The model is applied for simulating the change of FFR due to variability of the vessels elasticity and autoregulation response rate.