Computational heart modeling is a promising approach for improving the prognosis of patients born with congenital heart defects. To create accurate physics-based digital cardiac twins of this population, it is crucial to accurately represent the highly diverse and unique subject-specific heart geometry. In young pediatric patients, this is a challenging endeavor given the lack of high-spatial-resolution imaging data and the risk of slice misalignment. In this study, we set up a multistep shape morphing and slice correction approach to accommodate these challenges and establish a population of biventricular heart models for a variety of healthy, Fallot, and Fontan pediatric patients.

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Background: Optimal timing of pulmonary valve replacement (PVR) in Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) patients remains challenging. Ventricular wall stress is considered to be an early marker of right ventricular (RV) dysfunction.

Objectives: To investigate the association of RV wall stresses and their change over time with functional parameters in TOF patients.

Methods: Ten TOF patients after surgical repair with moderate/severe pulmonary regurgitation were included. At two timepoints (median follow-up time 7.2 years), patient-specific computational biventricular models for wall stress assessment were created using CMR short-axis cine images and echocardiography-based RV pressures. RV ejection fraction (RVEF), NT-proBNP and cardiopulmonary exercise tests were used as outcome measures reflecting RV function. Associations between regional RV diastolic wall stress and RV function were investigated using linear mixed models.

Results: Increased wall stress correlated with lower RV mass (rrm = −0.70, p = 0.017) and lower RV mass-to-volume (rrm = −0.80, p = 0.003) using repeated measures. Wall stress decreased significantly over time, especially in patients with a stable RVEF (p < 0.001). Higher wall stress was independently associated with lower RVEF, adjusted for left ventricular ejection fraction, RV end-diastolic volume and time since initial surgery (decrease of 1.27% RVEF per kPa increase in wall stress, p = 0.029) using repeated measurements. No association was found between wall stress, NT-proBNP, and exercise capacity.

Conclusions: Using a computational method to calculate wall stress locally in geometrically complex ventricles, we demonstrated that lower wall stress might be important to maintain ventricular function. RV wall stress assessment can be used in serial follow-up, and is potentially an early marker of impending RV dysfunction.@en