The aim of this study is to validate a person-specific distributed model of the main systemic arterial tree. This model is built and validated with non-invasive measurements on the same person, leading therefore to a coherent set of physiological data. One-dimensional (1D) models have been used for more than 30 years to predict or analyze pressure and flow in the arterial tree (Avolio [1], Stergiopulos et al [2], Westerhof et al [3]), demonstrating their aptitude of modeling wave propagation, however, they have never being validated using in vivo measurements. A quantitative validation was performed in vitro in an elastic tube network dimensioned to resemble the human arterial tree by Matthys et al. [4]. The results were supportive of the 1D model’s capacity to yield good predictions, however, neither the form of the waves nor the elastic properties of the in vitro tube network were matching faithfully their physiological counterparts, so the interest to quantitatively validate the 1D model in vivo remained.
Validation of a one-dimensional model of the systemic arterial tree