Modelling Congenital Heart Disease

This book combines medicinal and engineering knowledge to present engineering modelling applications (mainly computational, but also experimental) in the context of facilitating a patient-centred approach to treating congenital heart disease (CHD). After introducing the basic concepts of engineering tools, it discusses modelling and the applications of engineering techniques (e.g. computational fluid dynamics, fluid-structure interaction, structural simulations, virtual surgery, advanced image analysis, 3D printing) in specific congenital heart diseases. It also offers a number of clinical case studies describing the applications in real-life clinical practice. The final section focuses on the importance of surgical training, counselling and patient communication.Considering the unique anatomical arrangement pre/post repair in CHD, as well as the different surgical strategy and device options (e.g. stents) for interventions, a patient-specific approach is certainly warranted in this area of medicine, and engineering is helping improve our understanding of individual patients and their particular anatomy and physiology.To reinforce the idea of a necessary dialogue between clinicians and engineers, this book has not only been edited by two cardiologists and two bioengineers, but each chapter has been written by a clinician and an engineer, incorporating both voices in the description of state-of-the-art models for different CHDs.