Abstract

A myriad of factors must be considered when evaluating the prognosis of complex aortic pathologies and complications after complex aortic surgery. It is a challenging task for clinicians to produce a prognosis and predict the efficacy of treatment options with utmost accuracy based solely on human judgement. Of late, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been the key to modelling and visualising complex haemodynamics by analysing fluid–fluid and fluid–surface interactions. This editorial discusses two promising applications of CFD in complex aortic pathology: (1) improving endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) treatment outcomes and (2) allowing clinicians to produce more accurate patient-specific diagnosis, prognosis and prediction when coupled with cardiovascular imaging. The prospective future application of CFD is in designing an integrated image-based CFD framework with a “digital patient” representation to allow clinicians to input patient-specific data and rapidly obtain a recommended treatment option, revolutionising the way in which doctors provide patient-centric care.