Department of Physics and Earth Sciences, University of Ferrara, Via Giuseppe Saragat, 1, 44122, Ferrara, Italy.
National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) - Section of Ferrara, Via Giuseppe Saragat, 1, 44122, Ferrara, Italy.
Eur Radiol Exp. 2020 Mar 16;4(1):16. doi: 10.1186/s41747-020-0146-x.
Congenital vascular disease is one of the leading causes of death in paediatric age. Despite the importance of paediatric haemodynamics, large investigations have been devoted to the evaluation of circulation in adults. The novelty of this study consists in the development of a well calibrated mathematical model of cardiovascular circulation in paediatric subjects. To reach the purpose, a model for adult circulation was modified and recalibrated with experimental data and literature from children to be able to calculate the flow rates and pressures in the brain and neck.
The haemodynamic model simulates the 76 main arteries, together with the main veins in brain and neck. A proper magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) dataset of 29 volunteers aged 12 ± 5 years (mean ± standard deviation) was used to extract age-dependent physiological and clinical parameters such as heart rate, flow rate, vessel cross section area, and blood pressure. The computational model was calibrated using such experimental data. The paediatric and adult model results were compared.
Increase of the vessels stiffness due to aging contributes to a flow rate decrease while blood pressure increases. In accordance, our simulation results show about 16% decrease in mean pressure of internal jugular vein in paediatric rather than adult subjects. The model outcomes indicated about 88% correlation with MRI data.
The mathematical model simulates the paediatric head and neck blood circulation. The model provides detailed information of human haemodynamics including arterial and venous network to study both paediatric and adult blood circulation.
先天性血管疾病是导致儿科年龄段死亡的主要原因之一。尽管儿科血液动力学非常重要，但大量研究都致力于评估成年人的循环情况。本研究的新颖之处在于开发了一种经过良好校准的儿科患者心血管循环数学模型。为了达到这个目的，对成人循环模型进行了修改和重新校准，并使用来自儿童的实验数据和文献来计算大脑和颈部的流量和压力。
血液动力学模型模拟了 76 条主要动脉以及大脑和颈部的主要静脉。使用适当的 29 名年龄在 12 ± 5 岁（平均值 ± 标准差）的志愿者的磁共振成像（MRI）数据集，提取年龄相关的生理和临床参数，如心率、流量、血管截面积和血压。使用这些实验数据对计算模型进行了校准。比较了儿科和成人模型的结果。
由于衰老导致的血管僵硬增加会导致流量减少而血压升高。因此，我们的模拟结果表明，在儿科患者中，颈内静脉的平均压力比成人患者降低了约 16%。模型结果与 MRI 数据的相关性约为 88%。
该数学模型模拟了儿科头颈部血液循环。该模型提供了包括动脉和静脉网络在内的详细人体血液动力学信息，可用于研究儿科和成人的血液循环。
