Computational mimicking of surgical leaflet suturing for virtual aortic valve neocuspidization

Abstract

Abstract The aortic valve neocuspidization (AVNeo) procedure requires the design of patient-specific neo-cusps which can be made numerically through the neovalve closure modelling. Prior the simulation, it is required to ‘suture virtually’ the neocusps into the patient’s aortic geometry, i.e., to find such state in which the neocusps are placed in the aortic root lumen without intersections of physical surfaces and neo-valve prolapse, and the position of the suture boundary satisfies the boundary conditions. To solve this problem, we tried to mimic neocusps suturing in Ozaki’s operation. As a result, we propose a new algorithm for ‘virtual suturing’ of given neocusps, considered as thin shells. The approach is able to work with both small and large (compared to an optimal size) neocusps and to handle each cusp independently of the others.