• ANSA
• biomedical
• Cardioband
• FSI
• heart
• LS-DYNA
• mitral valve
• simulation
• surgery

Heart valves play a very important role in the cardiovascular system in maintaining one-way flow of blood circulation by effectively opening and closing at appropriate times during the heart cycle. In particular, the mitral valve (MV) between the left ventricle (LV) and the left atrium (LA) allows efficient filling of the LV during diastole and closes rapidly at the onset of ventricular contraction preventing the regurgitation of blood into the LA during the phase of isovolumic contraction. Valves undergo complex movements and deformations associated with various stresses and are subjected to high pressures load (∼120 mmHg). Directly affecting the heart, dysfunction of the MV can affect either opening or closing through stenosis or prolapse/regurgitation respectively. Complementing experimental techniques and numerical simulation of the MV offer additional insights into MV function as unmeasurable variables such as the stresses can be approximated. Due to the immersed nature of the heart valves, numerical simulation of the MV requires an approach that is able to model both the large deformation of the MV and non–uniform haemodynamics pressure load resulting from the blood/heart valve contact. In this work the finite element solver LS–DYNA has been used as it addresses both issues. Using this framework, anatomically sized MV models have been used to characterise the current methodology of reported heart valve simulations, showing that the Cardioband procedure is able to restore a proper MV dynamic. In fact, the aim of this work is to evaluate the effects of the Cardioband procedure on the functioning of the mitral valve on patients suffering from mitral regurgitation. This technique represents one of the latest applications in the surgical field and its peculiarities place it among the most advanced techniques for the treatment of heart diseases.