Why the study?
Does a trileaflet mechanical heart valve generate different wall shear stress compared to a bileaflet mechanical heart valve in a human aorta model?
Does a trileaflet mechanical heart valve generate different wall shear stress compared to a bileaflet mechanical heart valve in a human aorta model?
Trileaflet mechanical heart valves generate significantly lower peak wall shear stress in the ascending aorta compared to bileaflet valves in an experimental model.
Trileaflet valves may reduce peak aortic wall shear stress in models; leaves open clinical translation to human valve selection.
An experimental study is reported which investigates the wall shear stress (WSS) distribution in a transparent model of the human aorta comparing a bileaflet mechanical heart valve (BMHV) with a trileaflet mechanical heart valve (TMHV) in physiological pulsatile flow. Elastic micro-pillar WSS sensors, calibrated by micro-Particle-Image-Velocimetry measurement, are applied to the wall along the ascending aorta. Peak WSS values are observed almost twice in BMHV compared to TMHV. Flow field analyses illuminate that these peaks are linked to the jet-like flows generated in the valves interacting with the aortic wall. Not only the magnitude but also the impact regions are specific for the different valve designs. The side-orifice jets generated by BMHV travel along the aortic wall in the ascending aorta and cause a whole range impact, while the jets generated by TMHV impact further downstream in the ascending aortic generating less severe WSS.
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Li et al. (2018) studied this question.
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