Analysis of esophageal transport on reconstructed models from medical images

The dynamics of esophageal bolus transport involves a complex interaction between muscle activation, esophageal wall material properties and the bolus. A better understanding of the physiologic biomechanics of esophageal transport will potentially improve patient diagnosis and treatment. This is an extension of the previous work on esophageal transport based on continuum mechanics where the simulations were performed on a simple cylindrical geometry. In this work, we have developed 3D models of the esophagus from medical scan image sequences. These images can be from various sources like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) or Computed Tomography (CT) or Barium Swallow Test. This process mainly involves image segmentation to visualize the anatomy of the esophagus, generation of surface meshes and, finally, generate solid models for analysis. Immersed Boundary Finite Element method is used to develop a fully resolved model of the esophagus. Though the shape of the esophagus varies from patient to patient, this analysis gives more realistic insights of esophageal transport that could be more clinically relevant.