A validated framework for assessing coronary fractional flow reserve with steady CFD

Invasive coronary angiography with fractional flow reserve (iFFR) measurement at hyperemia is considered the gold standard for assessing the stenosis severity. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) FFR evaluation is an innovative and non-invasive approach, based on coronary models segmented from CT, coupled to patient-tailored time varying lumped parameters as boundary conditions. While widely acknowledged, this approach doesn’t meet the clinical demands for fast results. To this aim, being FFR the average ratio between distal to proximal pressure, we propose a framework that exploits less time-consuming steady CFD simulations that gives accurate estimation of FFRCFD, comparable to transient CFD results. We demonstrated on a board cohort, exploiting a framework for BCs tuning based only on baseline parameters commonly available in clinical practice, that steady CFD simulations enables accurate evaluation of FFRCFD, validating results vs. invasive measurements. More time-consuming transient CFD yields results which do not differ significantly from steady CFD ones.