Ventricular interaction and cardiac pathologies in a thick shell model of cardiac chamber deformation

Ventricular interdependence is an important part of heart function, and hence a key mediator of most pathological consequences of its impairment. It can only be explained by accounting for overall chamber deformation as well as cardiac dimensions and nonlinear material properties. Further, clinically useful interpretation of imaging data about pathological alterations in chamber geometry is hampered by lack of understanding of its significance in cardiac function. A model has been developed which describes the ventricles and septum as portions of ellipsoid shells, allowing structural characterization of diastolic ventricular interaction over arbitrary ranges of chamber pressures and volumes as well as intrathoracic pressures. Chamber configuration is derived as a function of pressure gradients by combining shell element equilibrium equations through static boundary conditions applied at the sulcus. Coupling coefficients between state variables are then calculated by letting the system evolve quasistatically through the solution space. The model is used to simulate a number of cardiac pathologies (constrictive pericarditis, restrictive myocarditis, left/right free wall and septal hypertrophy, left dilatative cardiomyopathy) and quantify their effect on ventricular pressurepressure coupling as well as diastolic pressurevolume relationships. Results match experimental observations where available. The model can aid in interpreting diagnostic data about chamber geometry in a quantitative manner, and the differential effect of cardiac pathologies with otherwise similar phenomenology on ventricular interaction can serve as a discriminating diagnostic criterion. © 2009 World Scientific Publishing Company.