Patient-specific imaging-based techniques for optimization of pediatric cardiovascular surgery

Abstract

Advances in tomographic imaging techniques and computer processing power in recent decades have made it possible to artificially simulate surgical procedures using reconstructed patient-specific data. This ability lends itself well to the field of pediatric cardiology, in which complex congenital malformations and highly compensated circulations make it difficult to plan interventions or predict their physiological outcomes. At the moment, efforts to model septal defects, tetralogy of Fallot, congenital single-ventricle defects, valve disease, and other structural cardiovascular pathologies, pre- and post-repair, are limited to the research setting. This is because many necessary steps, including the development of virtual anatomical “meshes,” application of equations governing fluid and tissue behavior, and incorporation of clinical hemodynamic data, have yet to be automated. Nonetheless, computational simulation of pediatric cardiovascular surgeries represents an intense area of study and may 1 day revolutionize the field.