COMPREHENSIVE CARDIOVASCULAR MODELING: CARDIOVASCULAR AND RESPIRATORY SYSTEMS

The complexity of the circulatory system makes its analysis very difficult or sometimes impossible in clinical environment. Moreover, external actions such as mechanical circulatory or ventilatory assistance applied in cases of cardiovascular insufficiency cause the situation to be even more difficult to be analyzed. Thus modelling and simulation are widely used in many aspects of cardiovascular physiopathology both for analysis and prediction. Models are very often developed to study specific problems in different fields which include fluid dynamics, haemodynamics as well as mechanical circulatory and ventilatory assistance. The aim of this book is to give a general view of the problems underlying the mutual interactions between the heart and the circulatory system with and without ventricular and ventilatory assistance and of the tools that can be used to represent and analyze them. What we try to give is a general method to cope with the problem rather than to offer an omni-comprehensive solution. On this basis, the book, without pretending to be exhaustive, contains at first a description of the main aspects of cardiovascular mechanics related to haemodynamics, energetics, artero-ventricular and cardio-pulmonary interactions. Once defined the approach and the usable tools, specific physiological and pathological states are analyzed. The next part is devoted to the analysis of the mechanical actions (circulatory and ventilatory) that can be performed to re-establish the broken haemodynamic balance caused by a pathological state. A subsequent part of the book is devoted to review mathematical models that can be used to represent the cardiovascular system in physiopathological conditions and during circulatory and ventilatory mechanical assistance as well. Finally, the last part describes specific features of numerical, physical and numerical-physical (hybrid) models. The models described are part of a family offering different structures flexible enough to be adapted to different conditions. Hybrid models merge properties of numerical and physical models preserving their advantages and permit to optimise the performances of both types of the models. Numerous examples of cardiovascular simulation are presented to show the possibility to use modelling as a tool to predict the effect of heart and lung mechanical assistance on haemodynamics and ventricular energetics. Video presentation of these examples is included in a CD-ROM attached to the book.