Semester of Graduation

Fall 2018

Degree

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME)

Department

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Laryngotracheal stenosis (LTS) is a health condition in which an obstruction in the upper trachea can cause breathing difficulties and increased incidence of infection, among other symptoms. Occurring most commonly due to intubation in infants, LTS often requires corrective surgery. Currently, clinical methods of assessing the blockage region are simplistic and subjective, and it is challenging to determine the most effective surgical strategy for any given patient. In the present work, a comprehensive methodology is proposed for characterizing the stenosis region both in terms of its anatomical parameters and its corresponding aerodynamic properties. The combination of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and medical imaging provides a non-invasive method for establishing these relationships between anatomy and aerodynamics. As software packages for such analyses have matured in recent years, computational approaches to solving medical problems have gained more widespread appeal. While patient-specific CFD has gained recent popularity, the approach presented in the present work aims to generate parametric correlations which may be applied to any member of a class of patients. These correlations may be used clinically to provide data-driven recommendations for surgical procedures.

Date

10-18-2018

Committee Chair

Gonthier, Keith A.

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.4810

Download

Share

COinS