Author/Editor		Geršak, B; Trobec, R; Gabrijelčič, T; Slivnik, B
Title		The model of topical heart cooling during induced hypothermic cardiac arrest in open heart surgery
Type		članek
Source		In: Computers in cardiology 1995; 1995 Sep 10-13; Vienna. Vienna: The institute of electrical and electronics engineers,
Publication year		1995
Volume		str. 597-600
Language		eng
Abstract		The paper presents a new method of parallel computer simulation in cardiac surgery. The heat equation is transformed to a set of difference equations which are solved numerically by the finite difference method. We are considering the level of moderate hypothermia with esophageal temperature of 28 degree C. The average initial heart temperature after cardioplegia is supposed to be 11 degree C. Two types of topical cooling are considered: first, the temperature of the cooling liquid (TCL) is heald constant on 0.2 degree C with a heat exchanger, and second, the initial TCL is set to 0.2 degree C and no heat exchanger is used. The heart modelling method bases on a series of axial-slice images obtained by a human heart CT-scan. After definiton of different substances the images are digitalised with requested resolution and compound into a three dimensional body. Using a parallel computer with 16 high speed processors, the resulting calculation is approximately ten times slower than the real cooling process in nature.
Descriptors		HEART ARREST, INDUCED HYPOTHERMIA, INDUCED MODELS, CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH SURVEYS