Heart valve disease (HVD) requiring surgical intervention can be broadly classified as a condition that may be congenital or acquired later in life. The latter can result from a combination of genetic and environmental factors (e.g., rheumatic fever). Recent advances in the treatment of HVD have been focused on either minimally invasive percutaneous approaches for prosthesis implantation or the understanding of fundamental insights toward development of completely autologous and living biological valves, known as tissue-engineered heart valves, usually grown from progenitor cell sources. In either scenario, the complex hemodynamics that are present in the vicinity of the valve and time-varying stresses on the leaflets are likely to provide valuable information in terms of surgical planning and preoperative, postoperative, and temporal, longitudinal functional assessment. Today, advances in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have reached a point of accuracy where very complex flow scenarios can be modeled in a straightforward manner provided that three-dimensional geometry and boundary conditions are representative of the actual, physical states. Here, we provide a review of the role that CFD has and will play in guiding technologies toward treatment of HVD.
