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Force Validated Heart Valve Surgical Planning Tool

Award Number: R15HL145585
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, & BLOOD INSTITUTE
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2019
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/31/2023

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Force Validated Heart Valve Surgical Planning Tool - ABSTRACT While advances in cardiac surgery have revolutionized the treatment of heart valve disease, problems remain with the durability of surgical repair techniques, devices and replacement valves. A major challenge in perfecting the design of these procedures and devices is to ensure that post-operatively the valve functions under the lowest possible stress to ensure its longevity. This is particularly true for the mitral valve, which faces the highest pressures and forces of the four cardiac valves. The force is equal to two regular bottles of water in gravity, 100,000 timers per day. The seriousness of the problem is dire; according to the 2017 American Heart Association reports, recurrence of moderate to severe insufficiency at 12 months following surgical repair of ischemic mitral valve regurgitation is still more than 30%. While information for surgical planning or device design can be based on computer simulations built from available medical imaging modalities with assumed or measured material properties of the heart and valve tissue, these material properties are often associated with significant simplifications and thus the simulation may not accurately reflect the true forces and strains on the cardiac valves. The goal of this work is to create a new, force-validated model of the mitral valve for patient-specific surgical planning and intelligent device development, using nature’s own stress-minimization concepts. We hypothesize that computational soft tissue models that are coupled with experimental shape and force measurements obtained directly from a functioning valve will lead to a better validated system for stress-optimized heart valve interventions. The porcine mitral valve has for more than two decades been accepted as a highly relevant anatomic basis of the human mitral valve. Within this project, we will image porcine hearts in a sedated animal to obtain the geometry of major valve landmark points, then explant the heart and mount the dissected mitral valve in a valve holder that is 3D printed to match each animal’s individual anatomy. The mitral valve will then undergo high resolution magnetic resonance imaging within a pressurized chamber that will allow the valve to remain open and closed under physiological conditions. Detailed force measurements will be performed on the same valve to ensure that correct biomechanical boundary conditions are obtained. These high-resolution data will then inform a computational model of the valve that will be tested and validated against the clinical measurements obtained in vivo prior to heart explantation. At the conclusion of this project we aim to employ the newly developed model in one exemplary mitral valve repair surgery to demonstrate the significant advantage of force validated computational models. The project participants’ competencies are interdisciplinary and highly relevant to the project. Expertise is brought together from in vivo and in vitro biomechanical cardiovascular experimentation, high fidelity MRI imaging of soft tissues, and computational modeling of cardiovascular tissue and the mitral valve.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = -$811 )
2024	2019	UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS	1125 W MAPLE ST STE 316	FAYETTEVILLE	AR	72701	WASHINGTON	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	1	2/28/2024	NEW	-$811
														Subtotal = -$811

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2022	2019	UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM	1125 WEST MAPLE STE 210	FAYETTEVILLE	AR	72701	WASHINGTON	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	1	8/30/2022	NEW	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2019 ( Subtotal = $416,905 )
2019	2019	UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM	1125 WEST MAPLE STE 210	FAYETTEVILLE	AR	72701	WASHINGTON	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	1	8/26/2019	NEW	$416,905
2019	2019	UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM	1125 WEST MAPLE STE 210	FAYETTEVILLE	AR	72701	WASHINGTON	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	001	1	9/9/2019	NEW	$0
														Subtotal = $416,905

Grand Total All Awards = $416,094

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Force Validated Heart Valve Surgical Planning Tool

Award Number: R15HL145585

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, & BLOOD INSTITUTE

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2019

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/31/2023

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