Identification of a Mathematical Model for the Prediction of Platelet Damage Accumulation in Artificial Organs: A Preliminary Study

Platelets are the pre-eminent cell involved in hemostasis and thrombosis. In recent years it has been demonstrated that flow-induced platelet activation is a major cause for the relatively high incidence of thromboembolic complications in mechanical heart valves (MHVs) [1,2].The platelet activation state (PAS) assay has proved to be a reliable technique for the experimental measurement of procoagulant activity [3]. A Predictive numerical model for platelets damage accumulation could provide critical information for thrombogenicity optimization of implantable prosthetic devices. This would lead to improving the safety and efficacy of implantable devices. Reliable models able to predict this phenomenon are still lacking. The aim of this work is an attempt to bridge this gap. A model for describing the activation of formed elements in blood requires establishing a correlation between mechanical loading, exposure time and the phenomenological response of these elements to it. A physically consistent phenomenological model is used [4] and genetic algorithms (GAs) [5], have been successfully applied to the tuning of the model parameters by correlating its predictions to PAS measurements conducted in a Hemodynamic Shearing Device (HSD) by exposing platelets to prescribed shear stress loading waveforms.