Prediction of myocardial blood flow under stress conditions by means of a computational model

Quantification of myocardial blood flow (MBF) and functional assessment of coronary artery disease (CAD) can be achieved through stress myocardial computed tomography perfusion (stress-CTP). This requires an additional scan after the resting coronary computed tomography angiography (cCTA) and administration of an intravenous stressor. This complex protocol has limited reproducibility and non-negligible side effects for the patient. We aim to mitigate these drawbacks by proposing a computational model able to reproduce MBF maps.

A computational perfusion model was used to reproduce MBF maps. The model parameters were estimated by using information from cCTA and MBF measured from stress-CTP (MBF_CTP) maps. The relative error between the computational MBF under stress conditions (MBF_COMP) and MBF_CTP was evaluated to assess the accuracy of the proposed computational model.

Applying our method to 9 patients (4 control subjects without ischemia vs 5 patients with myocardial ischemia), we found an excellent agreement between the values of MBF_COMP and MBF_CTP. In all patients, the relative error was below 8% over all the myocardium, with an average-in-space value below 4%.

The results of this pilot work demonstrate the accuracy and reliability of the proposed computational model in reproducing MBF under stress conditions. This consistency test is a preliminary step in the framework of a more ambitious project which is currently under investigation, i.e., the construction of a computational tool able to predict MBF avoiding the stress protocol and potential side effects while reducing radiation exposure.