Transdisciplinary Visualization of Aortic Dissections

Abstract

Aortic dissection is a life-threatening condition caused by the abrupt formation of a secondary blood flow channel within the vessel wall. Patients surviving the acute phase remain at high risk for late complications, such as aneurysm formation and aortic rupture. The timing of these complications is variable, making long-term imaging surveillance crucial for aortic growth monitoring. Morphological characteristics of the aorta, its hemodynamics, and, ultimately, risk models impact treatment strategies. Providing such a wealth of information demands expertise across a broad spectrum to understand the complex interplay of these influencing factors. We present results of our longstanding transdisciplinary efforts to confront this challenge. Our team has identified four key disciplines, each requiring specific expertise overseen by radiology: lumen segmentation and landmark detection, risk predictors and inter-observer analysis, computational fluid dynamics simulations, and visualization and modeling. In each of these disciplines, visualization supports analysis and serves as communication medium between stakeholders, including patients. For each discipline, we summarize the work performed, the related work, and the results.