Validating MRI-Derived Myocardial Stiffness Estimates Using In Vitro Synthetic Heart Models

F. O. Kolawole*, Mathias Peirlinck, T. E. Cork, M. Levenston, Ellen Kuhl, D. B. Ennis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
29 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Impaired cardiac filling in response to increased passive myocardial stiffness contributes to the pathophysiology of heart failure. By leveraging cardiac MRI data and ventricular pressure measurements, we can estimate in vivo passive myocardial stiffness using personalized inverse finite element models. While it is well-known that this approach is subject to uncertainties, only few studies quantify the accuracy of these stiffness estimates. This lack of validation is, at least in part, due to the absence of ground truth in vivo passive myocardial stiffness values. Here, using 3D printing, we created soft, homogenous, isotropic, hyperelastic heart phantoms of varying geometry and stiffness and simulate diastolic filling by incorporating the phantoms into an MRI-compatible left ventricular inflation system. We estimate phantom stiffness from MRI and pressure data using inverse finite element analyses based on a Neo-Hookean model. We demonstrate that our identified softest and stiffest values of 215.7 and 512.3 kPa agree well with the ground truth of 226.2 and 526.4 kPa. Overall, our estimated stiffnesses revealed a good agreement with the ground truth (< 5.8 % error) across all models. Our results suggest that MRI-driven computational constitutive modeling can accurately estimate synthetic heart material stiffnesses in the range of 200–500 kPa.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1574-1587
JournalAnnals of Biomedical Engineering
Volume51
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care
Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Keywords

  • 3D printed phantom
  • Cardiac mechanics
  • Cardiac MRI
  • Heart failure
  • Hyperelastic materials
  • In vitro MRI
  • Passive myocardial stiffness

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Validating MRI-Derived Myocardial Stiffness Estimates Using In Vitro Synthetic Heart Models'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this