A novel 3D dynamic computational model successfully simulates vascular tree development, physiological characteristics, and pathological modifications.
May guide in silico vascular research; leaves open clinical translation pending validation.
A new vascular model is presented. It is a 3D dynamic and functional model in which the organ growth leads to the development of the vascular tree. The growth is controlled by the simulated cells rhythm of regeneration. Since the function of vessels is the irrigation/drainage of the tissue, their geometry follows mainly from the angiogenesis process and depends on some hemodynamic features, like the pressure (at the entrance and the extremities of the tree) and the total flow rate in the organ. At each step of the development, a cost function related to the total blood volume in the vascular tree is minimized. Simulation results concerning both the growth of an arterial tree and its anatomical and physiological characterization are presented with respect to different adjustments of the model parameters. Local or global vascular modifications appearing in pathology (like local hyper-vascularization, for example) are simulated. Other results like the coupling between an arterial and a venous tree, and like the contrast product propagation in an arterial tree are also illustrated. Future works deal with possible extensions of the model to be used in the generation of CT images, and in the simulation of other pathological processes.
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Bézy‐Wendling et al. (1999) studied this question.
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