Computers to Detect Aneurysms

Mechanical Engineering, Apr 2008 by Thilmany, Jean

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIE each year from ruptured brain and aortic aneurysms. The bulges, which occur in weakened areas of blood vessel walls, can rupture without warning.

Finding aneurysms before they rupture can help physicians save lives. But the diagnosis isn't always easy for a doctor to make with today s technology.

Promising results are emerging from computer modeling initiatives that use computational fluid dynamics to simulate blood flow through the arteries to pinpoint weakened areas, said Karla Vega, a graduate research assistant at the Texas Advanced Computing Center Visualization and Data Analysis group. But CFD can use more power than research systems may have available.

When used to simulate blood flow, CFD returns a huge volume of information-sometimes terabytes of data-which can overwhelm computers. Vega's group, housed at the University of Texas in Austin, provides the computing resources to bolster computationally intensive research.

For instance, Vega works with Yuri Bazilevs, a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, also at the University of Texas, who uses computer power to develop 3-D blood-flow simulations. The simulations are animated with the help of EnSight Gold simulation software from Computational Engineering International Inc. of Apex, N.C.

These types of animations could play a future role in diagnosing aneurysms, Bazilevs said.

"One aspect of this that is very exciting is the animations that Karla develops correspond to a real person," Bazilevs said. "These models are setting the groundwork for use one day in clinical settings to assist in identifying diseases of the cardiovascular system and in surgical treatments."

Vega and Bazilevs believe that the daily use of this technology in a clinical setting is still in the future, although the ultimate benefits are clear.

"This will definitely be used some day," Bazilevs said. "Today, the models are still quite complex and would be challenging for physicians to use in a clinical environment, but we doctors are getting more and more excited by the possibilities this presents as part of the medical decision-making process."