Physical and physiologic determinants of pulmonary venous flow: numerical analysis. Thomas, James D., Jianhua Zhou, Neil Greenberg, George Bibawy, Patrick M. McCarthy, Pieter M. Vandervoort. Cardiovascular Imaging Center, Departments of Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio
APStracts 3:0495H, 1996.
To study the physical and physiologic determinants of transmitral and pulmonary venous flow, a lumped parameter model of the cardiovascular system has been created, modeling the instantaneous pressure, volume, and influx/efflux of the pulmonary veins, left atrium and ventricle, systemic arteries and veins, right atrium and ventricle, and pulmonary arteries. Initial validation has been obtained by direct comparison with transesophageal echocardiographic recordings of mitral and pulmonary venous velocity for the following clinical situations: normal diastolic function, delayed ventricular relaxation, restrictive filling due to severe systolic dysfunction, severe mitral regurgitation before and after valve repair surgery, and premature atrial contraction occurring during ventricular systole. Sensitivity analysis has been performed with a Jacobian matrix, representing the proportional change in a group of output indices (yi) in response to isolated changes in input parameters (xj), ((yi/yi)/(xj/xj)), demonstrating the complementary nature of mitral and pulmonary venous A-wave velocity for predicting ventricular stiffness and atrial systolic function. This unified numerical/experimental programming environment should facilitate model refinement and physiologic data exploration, in particular guiding more accurate interpretations of Doppler echocardiographic data.

Received 15 August 1995; accepted in final form 18 October 1996.
APS Manuscript Number H769-5.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Heart Circ. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 31 December 1996