Simulation based planning of surgical interventions in pediatric cardiology

Hemodynamics plays an essential role in the progression and treatment of cardiovascular disease. However, while medical imaging provides increasingly detailed anatomical information, clinicians often have limited access to hemodynamic data that may be crucial to patient risk assessment and treatment planning. Computational simulations can now provide detailed hemodynamic data to augment clinical knowledge in both adult and pediatric applications. There is a particular need for simulation tools in pediatric cardiology, due to the wide variation in anatomy and physiology in congenital heart disease patients, necessitating individualized treatment plans. Despite great strides in medical imaging, enabling extraction of flow information from magnetic resonance and ultrasound imaging, simulations offer predictive capabilities that imaging alone cannot provide. Patient specific simulations can be used for in silico testing of new surgical designs, treatment planning, device testing, and patient risk stratification. Furthermore, simulations can be performed at no direct risk to the patient. In this paper, we outline the current state of the art in methods for cardiovascular blood flow simulation and virtual surgery. We then step through pressing challenges in the field, including multiscale modeling, boundary condition selection, optimization, and uncertainty quantification. Finally, we summarize simulation results of two representative examples from pediatric cardiology: single ventricle physiology, and coronary aneurysms caused by Kawasaki disease. These examples illustrate the potential impact of computational modeling tools in the clinical setting.