A review on vortex dynamics in the healthy and dilated left ventricles and its application to heart health

Many cardiovascular diseases occur due to an abnormal functioning of the heart. A diseased heart leads to severe complications and in some cases death of an individual. The medical community believes that early diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases can be controlled by referring to numerical simulations of image-based heart models. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a commonly used tool for patient-specific simulations in cardiac flows, and it can be equipped to allow a better understanding of flow patterns. In this paper, we review the progress of CFD tools to understand the flow patterns in healthy and dilated cardiomyopathic (DCM) left ventricles (LVs). The formation of an asymmetric vortex in a healthy LV shows an efficient means of blood transport. The vortex pattern changes before any change in the geometry of LVs is noticeable. This flow change can be used as a marker of DCM progression. We can conclude that the vortex dynamics in LVs can be understood using the widely used vortex index, the vortex formation number (VFN). The VFN coupled with data-driven approaches can be used as an early diagnosis tool and leads to improvement in DCM treatment.