Generation of Patient-specific Structured Hexahedral Mesh of Aortic Aneurysm Wall

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Abstract

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is an enlargement in the lower part of the main artery “Aorta” by 1.5 times its normal diameter. AAA can cause death if rupture occurs. Elective surgeries are recommended to prevent rupture based on measurement of AAA diameter and diameter growth rate. Reliability of these geometric parameters to predict the AAA rupture risk has been questioned, and biomechanical assessment has been proposed to distinguish between patients with high and low risk of AAA rupture. Stress in aneurysm wall is the main variable of interest in such assessment. Most studies use finite element method to compute AAA stress. This requires discretising patient-specific geometry (aneurysm wall and intraluminal thrombus ILT) into finite elements/meshes. Tetrahedral elements are most commonly used as they can be generated in seemingly automated and effortless way. In practice, however, due to complex aneurysm geometry, the process tends to require time-consuming mesh optimisation to ensure sufficiently high quality of tetrahedral elements. Furthermore, ensuring solution convergence requires large number of tetrahedral elements, which leads to relatively long computation times. In this study, we focus on generation of hexahedral meshes as they are known to provide converged solution for smaller number of elements than tetrahedral meshes. We limit our investigation to already existing algorithms and software packages for mesh generation. Generation of hexahedral meshes for continua with complex/irregular geometry, such as aneurysms, requires analyst interaction. We propose a procedure for generating high-quality patient-specific hexahedral discretisation of aneurysm wall using the algorithms available in commercial software package for mesh generation. We demonstrate, for the actual aneurysms, that the procedure facilitates patient-specific mesh generation within timeframe consistent with clinical workflow while requiring only limited input from the analyst.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationComputational Biomechanics for Medicine
Subtitle of host publicationTowards Automation and Robustness of Computations in the Clinic
EditorsMartyn P. Nash, Adam Wittek, Poul M. F. Nielsen, Magdalena Kobielarz, Anju R. Babu, Karol Miller
Place of PublicationCham
PublisherSpringer Nature Switzerland AG
Pages3-22
Number of pages19
ISBN (Electronic)9783031349065
ISBN (Print)97893031349058
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Aug 2023
Event25th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2022 - Singapore, Singapore
Duration: 18 Sept 202222 Sept 2022

Conference

Conference25th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2022
Country/TerritorySingapore
CitySingapore
Period18/09/2222/09/22

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