Assessment of hemodynamics in debakey type III aortic dissections for planning surgical interventions and to understand post-treatment changes

Aortic dissections are a lethal disease affecting thousands of people in the USA each year. This chapter illustrates the application of personalized computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in understanding the hemodynamics of DeBakey type III/Stanford B aortic dissections (dissections confined to the descending aorta), pre-and post-surgical interventions, and simulating hemodynamic changes as a pretreatment planning tool. In this regard, CFD simulations using patient-derived data may be useful for gaining a conceptual understanding of the hemodynamic factors for a particular aortic dissection before intervention and how these factors change with treatment or disease progression. CFD simulations have a potential role in evaluating a number of scenarios and configurations, guiding therapy, and providing a basis for outcome prediction.