A Data Analysis Study on Human Liver Blood Circulation

TL;DR

This study introduces a non-invasive method combining 1-D, 0-D, and lumped parameter models to estimate liver blood flow parameters in humans, validated with data from 33 individuals.

Contribution

It presents an innovative, non-invasive approach to estimate liver blood circulation parameters using combined modeling and clinical measurements.

Findings

Effective parameter estimation validated by stroke value variation

Applicable to individual liver blood flow analysis

Uses non-invasive measurements for clinical relevance

Abstract

The liver has a unique blood supply system and plays an important role in the human blood circulatory system. Thus, hemodynamic problems related to the liver serve as an important part in clinical diagnosis and treatment. Although estimating parameters in these hemodynamic models is essential to the study of liver models, due to the limitations of medical measurement methods and constraints of ethics on clinical studies, it is impossible to directly measure the parameters of blood vessels in livers. Furthermore, as an important part of the systemic blood circulation, livers' studies are supposed to be in conjunction with other blood vessels. In this article, we present an innovative method to fix parameters of an individual liver in a human blood circulation using non-invasive clinical measurements. The method consists of a 1-D blood flow model of human arteries and veins, a 0-D model reflecting the peripheral resistance of capillaries and a lumped parameter circuit model for human livers. We apply the finite element method in fluid mechanics of these models to a numerical study, based on non-invasive blood related measures of 33 individuals. The estimated results of human blood vessel characteristic and liver model parameters are verified from the perspective of Stroke Value Variation, which shows the effectiveness of our estimation method.