Computational haemodynamics play a central role in the understanding of blood behaviourudin the cerebral vasculature, increasing our knowledge in the onset of vascularuddiseases and their progression, improving diagnosis and ultimately providing betterudpatient prognosis. Computer simulations hold the potential of accurately characterisingudmotion of blood and its interaction with the vessel wall, providing the capability toudassess surgical treatments with no danger to the patient. These aspects considerablyudcontribute to better understand of blood circulation processes as well as to augmentudpre-treatment planning. Existing software environments for treatment planning consistudof several stages, each requiring significant user interaction and processing time,udsignificantly limiting their use in clinical scenarios.udThe aim of this PhD is to provide clinicians and researchers with a tool to aidudin the understanding of human cerebral haemodynamics. This tool employs a highudperformance udfluid solver based on the lattice-Boltzmann method (coined HemeLB),udhigh performance distributed computing and grid computing, and various advancedudsoftware applications useful to efficiently set up and run patient-specific simulations.udA graphical tool is used to segment the vasculature from patient-specific CT or MRuddata and configure boundary conditions with ease, creating models of the vasculatureudin real time. Blood flow visualisation is done in real time using in situ renderingudtechniques implemented within the parallel udfluid solver and aided by steering capabilities;udthese programming strategies allows the clinician to interactively display theudsimulation results on a local workstation. A separate software application is usedudto numerically compare simulation results carried out at different spatial resolutions,udproviding a strategy to approach numerical validation. This developed software andudsupporting computational infrastructure was used to study various patient-specificudintracranial aneurysms with the collaborating interventionalists at the National Hospitaludfor Neurology and Neuroscience (London), using three-dimensional rotationaludangiography data to define the patient-specific vasculature. Blood flow motion wasuddepicted in detail by the visualisation capabilities, clearly showing vortex fluid udow features and stress distribution at the inner surface of the aneurysms and their surroundingudvasculature. These investigations permitted the clinicians to rapidly assessudthe risk associated with the growth and rupture of each aneurysm. The ultimate goaludof this work is to aid clinical practice with an efficient easy-to-use toolkit for real-timeuddecision support.
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