Date Approved

9-4-2019

Embargo Period

9-5-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S. Mechanical Engineering

Department

Mechanical Engineering

College

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering

Advisor

Merrill, Thomas L.

Committee Member 1

Mitchell, Jennifer

Committee Member 2

Haas, Francis M.

Keywords

Acute Myocardial Infarction, Infarct, Left Main Coronary Artery, Localized Therapeutic Hypothermia, Patient-Specific

Subject(s)

Heart failure--Treatment

Disciplines

Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering | Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) is the leading cause of worldwide death and disability, and approximately 720,000 Americans will experience an AMI in 2018. Studies have shown that rapid hypothermia therapy (<35°C) before reperfusion in patients with AMI can reduce infarct size by 37%. Localized therapeutic hypothermia has proven the potential to cool heart tissue rapidly following AMI, 3°C in 5 minutes. Using Materialise Mimics digital imaging software and the finite volume method we analyzed temperature distributions in six patient-specific left main coronary artery (LMCA) models. A mock circulatory loop was used to determine the exiting temperatures of a standard 7 Fr catheter to feed into our model with flow rates ranging from 29.2 ml/min to 68.85 ml/min. Our work showed that therapeutic hypothermia (TH) temperatures were evident at the outlets of three out of all six heart models, which varied in each left anterior descending (LAD) and left circumflex (LCX) artery depending on flowrate. Results of this study indicate that biovariability in patient-specific vascular structures significantly impacts therapeutic hypothermia (TH) treatment methods. These results indicate that further research is needed to examine more accurate physiological effects, such as pulsatile flow and vessel wall thickness. Future models will be used to provide insight to guide more efficient TH device designs and operation parameters to optimize patient outcomes following AMI.

Download

Share

COinS