Computational study on the influence of the location of the distal
pressure measurement point in the Fractional Flow Reserve
Abstract
Coronary stenosis is largely responsible of severe heart failure as they
can stop the blood flow to the myocardial. The Fractional Flow Reserve
(FFR) is the most usual functional assessment of the severity of the
coronary stenosis. In most cases, its value dictates the clinical
decision to set a stent to restore the flow. Therefore, a correct
measurement of this variable is crucial. This information can be very
important to prevent cardiologists from making the wrong clinical
decisions. From the data taken from an anonymous patient who underwent
Coronary Computed Tomographic Angiography and cardiac catheterization, a
comparison was made with the results of a computational simulation of
the model reconstructed from the angiography. The results of the
Fractional Flow Reserve obtained by simulation (0.834) agree with those
obtained experimentally (0.830), difference less than 0.8%, which
indicates that with simulation it is possible to obtain results that
would be very difficult to achieve experimentally. The actual invasive
procedure to measure the Fractional Flow Reserve is being executed with
a protocol that do not consider the influence of the location on the Pd
value. The new procedure would avoid false results related to the point
where the distal pressure is measured.