Instantaneous Visual Analysis of Blood Flow in Stenoses Using Morphological Similarity

The emergence of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) enabled the simulation of intricate transport processes, including flow in physiological structures, such as blood vessels. While these so-called hemodynamic simulations offer groundbreaking opportunities to solve problems at the clinical forefront, a successful translation of CFD to clinical decision-making is challenging. Hemodynamic simulations are intrinsically complex, time-consuming, and resource-intensive, which conflicts with the time-sensitive nature of clinical workflows and the fact that hospitals usually do not have the necessary resources or infrastructure to support CFD simulations. To address these transfer challenges, we propose a novel visualization system which enables instant flow exploration without performing on-site simulation. To gain insights into the viability of the approach, we focus on hemodynamic simulations of the carotid bifurcation, which is a highly relevant arterial subtree in stroke diagnostics and prevention. We created an initial database of 120 high-resolution carotid bifurcation flow models and developed a set of similarity metrics used to place a new carotid surface model into a neighborhood of simulated cases with the highest geometric similarity. The neighborhood can be immediately explored and the flow fields analyzed. We found that if the artery models are similar enough in the regions of interest, a new simulation leads to coinciding results, allowing the user to circumvent individual flow simulations. We conclude that similarity-based visual analysis is a promising approach toward the usability of CFD in medical practice.