Blood Clotting Decreases Pulmonary Circulation during the Coronavirus Disease

Abstract

Spontaneous blood clotting in pulmonary circulation caused by thrombo-inflammation is one of the main mortality causes during the COVID-19 disease. Blood clotting leads to reduced pulmonary circulation and blood oxygenation. Lung inflammation can be evaluated with noninvasive diagnostic techniques. However, the correlation of the severity of the inflammation with the pulmonary blood flow has not been established. To address this question, in this work, we develop a multiscale model taking into account the interaction of a local model of thrombus growth with 1D hemodynamics in a vessel network. Flux reduction depending on the level of lung obstruction is evaluated. In particular, the model obtains that an obstruction level of 5% leads to a 12% reduction of blood flux. The suggested approach can be used to investigate the interaction of blood clotting and flow not only in the pulmonary network but also in other complex vessel networks.

Combining Computational Modelling and Machine Learning to Identify COVID-19 Patients with a High Thromboembolism Risk

“…The model has shown that the lack of antithrombin and the excess of fibrinogen significantly influence the risk of thrombosis. In a previous study, we used a multiscale model to quantify the effect of vessel obstruction on blood circulation as a result of lung inflammation in COVID-19 [26]. We showed that an obstruction level of 5% leads to a decrease in blood flux by 12%.…”