Modelling blood flow before and after vascular surgery

VIRTUOSO: a virtual platform to enable precision vascular surgery -application on chronic type-b aortic dissection

Circulatory diseases are complicated to treat and can vary between individuals. When choosing from different treatment options available, doctors gather information about the shape of affected blood vessels using scans. But these often cannot provide enough information about an individual’s blood flow and how different treatments or surgery could affect this. Dr Diaz is developing a tool called VIRTUOSO – a visualisation platform that aims to enable more tailor-made vascular surgery. They will utilise imaging, computer modelling and physical tests to develop simulations and 3D printed models of a person’s blood vessels and flow before and after a surgical procedure. They will conduct a study with 10 people with a condition called Type B aortic dissection. Aortic dissection is a life-threatening condition where the wall of the main blood vessel leaving the heart, the aorta, splits causing blood to leak between the layers that makes up the wall. The team will use data to build patient-specific computer models of disease and blood flow before and after treatment. They will use 3D printing to construct models for each patient that help to visualise their blood vessels. These models will be used to predict the effects of surgery on blood flow in advance and compare blood flow before and after treatment. We hope that this will help to personalise treatment to individuals, improve outcomes, and allow patients to visualise and understand their condition and treatment better.