Numerical study of the influence of wall compliance on the haemodynamics in a patient-specific arteriovenous fistula

摘要

An arteriovenous fistula (AVF) is a vessel connection created surgically to provide adequate blood flow for haemodialysis. It consists of a connection between the end of the cephalic vein and the side of the brachial artery. The lifespan of an AVF is limited from a few days to about 10 years, but the reason for its failure (due to insufficient or excessive blood flow) remains an open question. A direct correlation between AVF failure and haemodynamic parameters has been shown (Van Tricht et al. 2005). The haemodynamics inside the AVF has previously been investigated using computational fluid dynamics simulations (Ene-Iordache et al. 2001; Kharboutly et al. 2007), but these studies neglected the compliance of the vessel wall. The aim of this study was to investigate the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) numerically in a patient-specific AVF. The results are compared to rigid wall simulations to quantify the impact of the wall compliance.