Last summer, Alberto Figueroa’s BME lab at the University of Michigan achieved an important “first” – using computer-generated blood flow simulations to plan a complex cardiovascular procedure.
“I believe this is the first time that virtual surgical planning was done for real and not as a retrospective theoretical exercise ,” says Figueroa.
Using a patient’s medical and imaging data, Figueroa was able to create a model of her unique vasculature and blood flow, then use it to guide U-M pediatric cardiologists Aimee Armstrong, Martin Bocks, and Adam Dorfman in placing a graft in her inferior vena cava to help alleviate complications from pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVMs). The simulations were done using the Flux HPC cluster.
