Date of Graduation

5-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biomedical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Jensen, Hanna

Committee Member/Reader

Jensen, Morten

Abstract

Pediatric stenosis is the narrowing of the aorta at the aortic valve, above the aortic valve, or below the aortic valve. Typically, this disease’s severity is diagnosed by conventional Doppler ultrasound methods, or echocardiography. Conventional Doppler can sometimes overestimate the pressure gradient over the area of stenosis, diagnosing some cases of PAS to be more severe than they actually are. This causes earlier intervention than is desired in children. A new US modality, Vector Flow Imaging (VFI), is an angle-independent US imaging method that can potentially more accurately quantify peak blood flow velocities and pressure gradients across stenotic sections of vasculature. This project’s goal was to create an in vitro cardiac flow loop that could validate the accuracy with which VFI could obtain these measurements. An in vitro healthy aortic arch was created so that pressure gradients could be measured directly by pressure transducers located at the inlet and outlet of the stenosis and compared to the pressure gradients obtained across the same region by use of VFI. A LabView VI was designed to display pressure vs. time data in Excel to obtain these pressure measurements. A mechanical pump was also designed to create pulsatile flow throughout the loop.

Keywords

Pediatric Aortic Stenosis, Vector Flow Imaging, Ultrasound, Aortic Arch Phantom

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