Modeling and Simulating Cardiovascular Heart Valve: Current Trends and Challenges

Heart valve disease, a common cardiovascular condition, severely compromises cardiac function and leads to serious complications. Prosthetic heart valves are crucial interventions in life-threatening cases requiring surgical or transcatheter replacement. This paper highlights the importance of simulation in designing, analyzing, and clinically applying heart valve prostheses and cardiovascular stents. It reviews recent advances in computational modeling techniques like Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which refine valve geometry and material selection, reduce physical prototyping, and enable personalized treatment planning. While challenges remain – including modeling biological interactions, high computational costs, and the need for clinical validation – simulation has significantly improved the safety, effectiveness, and long-term success of heart valve replacements. Simulation is presented not merely as a tool, but as a cornerstone of future cardiovascular device development, facilitating safer, more precise, and personalized solutions to improve patient outcomes and reduce procedural risks.

Keywords:

Heart valve , Simulation , Cardiovascular , Computational Fluid Dynamics , Finite Element Analysis , Heart modelling.