Is there a tornado in Alex's blood?
Let's meet Alex.
Alex was born with a common heart defect.
This is why Alex's blood flow needs to be examined regularly.
Would you like to know more about MRI?
The MRI is necessary because patients with heart disease or heart defects have
a higher risk of
developing vortices in their blood.
Vortices are common in nature.
They can be harmless, like a whirlpool of water.
They can be lethal, like a tornado.
Blood vortices are like tornadoes, just that they happen in your blood flow.
Here you can see the
blood flow in an aorta.
Sometimes they are harmless:
Here you can observe a small
vortex in a healthy human aorta!
They occure due to the curvature of the blood vessel.
But they can also pose
serious health risks!
Vortices put
additional stress
on the vessel walls, which weakens them.
This can lead to
aneurysms: abnormal bulges in the wall of the blood vessel!
Are there symptoms for aneurysms?
Aneurysms typically do not cause symptoms unless they rupture.
If they burst, they are a medical emergency!
How severe is Alex's blood vortex?
Unfortunately wrong. Alex blood vortex is in the middle between regular and severe.
Would you like to know more about the bicuspid aortic valve?
Alex has a vortex in their blood.
Further examinations show that surgery is necessary!
To regulate the bloodflow a new valve has to be inserted:
The doctor will insert a catheter into the aorta…
… and guide a balloon and the new valve to the narrowed valve.
The balloon and the new valve expand, opening narrowed valve in the process.
Afterwards, the balloon and catheter can be removed again, leaving the new valve behind!
Thank you for reading this story! Learn more:
References
https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/tornado.htm
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6183580/authors#authors
https://isgwww.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/visual/files/publications/2013/Kohler_2013_SciVis.pdf
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bicuspid-aortic-valve/cdc-20385577
https://www.mskcc.org/news/ct-vs-mri-what-s-difference-and-how-do-doctors-choose-which-imaging-method-use
The scans are prepared.
Remove noise
Segment the aorta
Set cutting planes
Compute the blood flow!
Unfortunately wrong. Alex blood vortex is in the middle between regular and severe.
Correct! Alex's blood vortex is in between of regular and severe.
graph TD
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