Vascular anastomoses, hemodynamics and hemorheology: Some general thoughts and open questions

N. Nemeth

Abstract: Safe and well-functioning vascular anastomoses are essential in the everyday practice of vascular surgery, heart surgery, transplantation surgery as well as in reconstructive procedures, including microsurgical approaches. Regeneration of artificial vascular anastomoses, especially the maturation of fistulas and venous grafts, is strongly influenced by the hemodynamic forces driven by the flow characteristics as well. Exploring the hemorheological and hemodynamic conditions thus is inevitable to understand better the physiology and pathophysiology of the regeneration of vascular anastomoses and graft implantations, as well as in other vascular surgical interventions. In this paper main aspects and findings of experimental surgical and microsurgical models are summarized, studying artificial arterio-venous fistulas, porto-caval shunts, and various grafts using in vivo measurements, hemorheological and hemodynamic investigations, as well as special 3D flow simulation studies on ex vivo vascular segments.

Series on Biomechanics, Vol.36 No.1 (2022), 70-74
DOI: 10.7546/SB.09.2022

Keywords: flow characteristics; flow simulation; hemodynamics; hemorheology; Vascular anastomoses

Date published: 2022-04-12