The assessment and study of cardiac haemodynamics, to both diagnose and understand the pathophysiology to provide a better disease management, requires the assessment of pressures and stiffness of the heart and vessels. However, this cannot be done non-invasively, which limits its application to fetal cardiology since catheterisation is too dangerous and damaging to the fetus. Therefore, in fetal cardiology, only imaging data is available, which includes anatomical ultrasound and Doppler to measure blood velocities.

Computational models are used to derive pressure and stiffness estimates from flow imaging data.  However, uncertainties arise from the acquisition and processing of these images, including the measurement’s spatial location and angle, sizing of vessels and organs, errors in Doppler velocity waveform delineation, and the influence of unobservable parameters. Moreover, these errors may have a greater impact in the case of fetuses, due to their smaller regions of interest and the lower resolution of their images.

In this thesis, we will study the effect of uncertainty in the estimations obtained from a 0D computational model of the fetal circulation that we developed. This will be done in collaboration with obstetricians from Hospital Sant Joan de Déu and Maternitat de Barcelona, who will provide real clinical data.

Requisites:

• Python and Matlab programming.
• Basic knowledge of cardiac physiology.

References:

• Villanueva, M. I., López, M., Sánchez, S., Garcia-Cañadilla, P., Randanne, P. C., Hawkins, A., Eixarch, E., Bonet-Carne, E., Gratacós, E., Crispi, F., Bijnens, B., & Bernardino, G. (2022). Haemodynamic Changes in the Fetal Circulation Post-connection to an Artificial Placenta: A Computational Modelling Study. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 13593 LNCS, 46–55. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23443-9_5.
• Garcia-Canadilla, P., Crispi, F., Cruz-Lemini, M., Triunfo, S., Nadal, A., Valenzuela-Alcaraz, B., Rudenick, P. A., Gratacos, E., & Bijnens, B. H. (2015). Patient-specific estimates of vascular and placental properties in growth-restricted fetuses based on a model of the fetal circulation. Placenta, 36(9), 981–989. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.placenta.2015.07.130.
• Schiavazzi, D. E., Arbia, G., Baker, C., Hlavacek, A. M., Hsia, T. Y., Marsden, A. L., Vignon-Clementel, I. E., and of Congenital Hearts Alliance (MOCHA) Investigators, T. M. (2016) Uncertainty quantification in virtual surgery hemodynamics predictions for single ventricle palliation. Int. J. Numer. Meth. Biomed. Engng., 32: n/a– n/a. doi: 10.1002/cnm.2737.

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