Computational Analysis of Coronary Blood Flow: The Role of Asynchronous Pacing and Arrhythmias

Abstract

In this work we present a one-dimensional (1D) mathematical model of the coronary circulation and use it to study the effects of arrhythmias on coronary blood flow (CBF). Hydrodynamical models are rarely used to study arrhythmias’ effects on CBF. Our model accounts for action potential duration, which updates the length of systole depending on the heart rate. It also includes dependency of stroke volume on heart rate, which is based on clinical data. We apply the new methodology to the computational evaluation of CBF during interventricular asynchrony due to cardiac pacing and some types of arrhythmias including tachycardia, bradycardia, long QT syndrome and premature ventricular contraction (bigeminy, trigeminy, quadrigeminy). We find that CBF can be significantly affected by arrhythmias. CBF at rest (60 bpm) is 26% lower in LCA and 22% lower in RCA for long QT syndrome. During bigeminy, trigeminy and quadrigeminy, respectively, CBF decreases by 28%, 19% and 14% with respect to a healthy case.

Keywords

• 1D haemodynamics
• systole variations
• coronary circulation
• cardiac pacing
• tachycardia
• bradycardia