Human cardiac wall stress analysis with patient-specific myocardial material properties

A patient-specific model to evaluate cardiac function from a beating heart is needed. Most current cardiac models were constructed using post mortem measurements of animal hearts. To help understand human cardiac mechanics and disease development, a model constructed based on real patient data is important. In this study, we have employed medical imaging techniques to analyze myocardial wall stress. We developed a methodology to determine myocardial material properties using measurements from magnetic resonance images. The finite element method was used to combine this information and perform wall stress calculations. This process was applied to two healthy human subjects to compute myocardial wall stress. We found general agreement in myocardial wall stress between subjects, with results showing higher stress at the inner wall of ventricles. The wall stress distributions in the left ventricle differed between the two subjects; one had a large area of high wall stress, the other had discontinuous bands of higher wall stress.