Numerical investigation of regurgitation phenomena in pulmonary arteries of Tetralogy of Fallot patients after repair.

Pulmonary regurgitation is a very common phenomenon in pulmonary arteries after repair of patients of Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) which is the most common complex congenital heart diseases. The aim of this study is to use numerical approaches to simulate flow variations in pulmonary artery after repair of patients of TOF. We analyze the flow patterns in an in-vitro bifurcation pulmonary artery and consider effects of various regurgitation fractions (RF or b/f) in left pulmonary artery (LPA) and right pulmonary artery (RPA). We not only observe the variation of flow patterns, but also analyze the results of b/f and net volumetric flow rates in LPA and RPA. In general, the b/f of LPA is higher than RPA in the measured data provided by phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (PC-MRI). We validate the result using numerical approaches to analyze the flow patterns in pulmonary artery in this study. The results will be useful for medical doctors when they perform operations for TOF patients.