Date of Graduation

5-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biomedical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Jensen, Morten

Committee Member/Reader

Quinn, Kyle

Abstract

Five million people in the US are diagnosed with valvular disease, of which mitral valve disease is one of the most common. Computational models are informed by high resolution images and have the potential to aid in diagnosing and establishing surgical plans to treat mitral valve diseases. Existing methods using 7T MRI imaging have limitations such as small bore diameter, long imaging times and difficulty in maintaining trans-mitral fluid pressure throughout the scan. Imaging with Micro CT allows for efficient scan times and eliminates bore size constraints which allows for imaging more sizes and types of MVs. There is a need for imaging MV in the systole conformation under dry conditions with Micro CT. Mitral valves were explanted from porcine hearts and 6 anchor measurements were taken. Based on these anchor measurements, mounting hardware was customized and 3D printed. The mitral valve was then sutured onto the customized hardware and mounted in an acrylic case with chambers representative of the left atrium and ventricle. The alternative approach proposed in this study is to close the MV leaflets by applying air pressure from the ventricular side and applying a surgical adhesive to the leaflets. The strengths of multiple surgical grade cyanoacrylates were tested on MV leaflets using a load scale. 3M Vetbond (98% N-butyl cyanoacrylate) was found to be the most effective adhesive with regards to strength and uniformity. The MVs were imaged with a Nikon X TH 225 ST μCT. This alternative approach was found to be effective when imaging the MV in the systole conformation under dry conditions when compared to the previous method for using fluid pressure for MRI imaging. By utilizing high quality imaging data, computational models will be more accurate at capturing MV behavior. These 3 validated models could then be used to advance our understanding of MV behavior as well as paving the way for new treatments and devices.

Keywords

mitral valve, microCT

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