A 3-D computational model of a St. Jude Medical mechanical heart valve showed that trajectories exposing platelets to elevated stress and entrapment in vortical structures enhanced platelet activation.
A computational damage accumulation model can quantify the thrombogenic potential of mechanical heart valves by predicting flow-induced platelet activation.
A model for platelet activation based on the theory of damage, incorporating cumulative effects of stress history and past damage (senescence) was applied to a three-dimensional (3-D) model of blood flow through a St. Jude Medical (SJM) bileaflet mechanical heart valve (MHV), simulating flow conditions after implantation. The calculations used unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes formulation with non-Newtonian blood properties. The results were used to predict platelet damage from total stress (shear, turbulent, deformation), and incorporate the contribution of repeated passages of the platelets along pertinent trajectories. Trajectories that exposed the platelets to elevated levels of stress around the MHV leaflets and led them to entrapment within the complex 3-D vortical structures in the wake of the valve significantly enhanced platelet activation. This damage accumulation model can be used to quantify the thrombogenic potential of implantable cardiovascular devices, and indicate the problem areas of the device for improving their designs.
Alemu et al. (Thu,) conducted a other in Platelet activation in mechanical heart valves. 3-D computational model of blood flow was evaluated on Platelet damage and activation. A 3-D computational model of a St. Jude Medical mechanical heart valve showed that trajectories exposing platelets to elevated stress and entrapment in vortical structures enhanced platelet activation.
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