A Method for In Vitro TCPC Compliance Verification

The Fontan procedure is a common palliative intervention for sufferers of single ventricle congenital heart defects that results in an anastomosis of the venous return to the pulmonary arteries called the total cavopulmonary connection (TCPC). Local TCPC and global Fontan circulation hemodynamics are studied with in vitro circulatory models because of hemodynamic ties to Fontan patient long-term complications. The majority of in vitro studies, to date, employ a rigid TCPC model. Recently, a few studies have incorporated flexible TCPC models, but provide no justification for the model material properties. The method set forth in this study successfully utilizes patient-specific flow and pressure data from phase contrast magnetic resonance images (PCMRI) (n = 1) and retrospective pulse-pressure data from an age-matched patient cohort (n = 10) to verify the compliance of an in vitro TCPC model. These data were analyzed, and the target compliance was determined as 1.36 ± 0.78 mL/mm Hg. A method of in vitro compliance testing and computational simulations was employed to determine the in vitro flexible TCPC model material properties and then use those material properties to estimate the wall thickness necessary to match the patient-specific target compliance. The resulting in vitro TCPC model compliance was 1.37 ± 0.1 mL/mm Hg—a value within 1% of the patient-specific compliance. The presented method is useful to verify in vitro model accuracy of patient-specific TCPC compliance and thus improve patient-specific hemodynamic modeling.