Surgical Aortic Valve Replacement: Are We Able to Improve Hemodynamic Outcome?

Aortic valve replacement (AVR) does not usually restore physiological flow profiles. Complex flow profiles are associated with aorta dilatation, ventricle remodeling, aneurysms, and development of atherosclerosis. All these affect long-term morbidity and often require reoperations. In this pilot study, we aim to investigate an ability to optimize the real surgical AVR procedure toward flow profile associated with healthy persons. Four cases of surgical AVR (two with biological and two with mechanical valve prosthesis) with available post-treatment cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including four-dimensional flow MRI and showing abnormal complex post-treatment hemodynamics, were investigated. All cases feature complex hemodynamic outcomes associated with valve-jet eccentricity and strong secondary flow characterized by helical flow and recirculation regions. A commercial computational fluid dynamics solver was used to simulate peak systolic hemodynamics of the real post-treatment outcome using patient-specific MRI measured boundary conditions. Then, an attempt to optimize hemodynamic outcome by modifying valve size and orientation as well as ascending aorta size reduction was made. Pressure drop, wall shear stress, secondary flow degree, helicity, maximal velocity, and turbulent kinetic energy were evaluated to characterize the AVR hemodynamic outcome. The proposed optimization strategy was successful in three of four cases investigated. Although no single parameter was identified as the sole predictor for a successful flow optimization, downsizing of the ascending aorta in combination with the valve orientation was the most effective optimization approach. Simulations promise to become an effective tool to predict hemodynamic outcome. The translation of these tools requires, however, studies with a larger cohort of patients followed by a prospective clinical validation study.