Cardiovascular system modelling of heart-lung interaction during mechanical ventilation

Abstract

Choosing suitable ventilation strategies for critically ill patients with lung disorders involves considering the difficult and poorly understood trade-off between achieving adequate ventilation, while maintaining suitable perfusion. This study presents a minimal cardiovascular system model that includes variations in pulmonary vascular resistance during mechanical ventilation. The model is shown to capture transient haemodynamics from experimentally measured data. It also enables investigation into the effects of time varying resistance on pulmonary haemodynamics. The study shows the potential usefulness of this model in a tool to assist clinical staff in optimising ventilation pressures while maintaining adequate pulmonary perfusion