Title: A computational flow model of oxygen transport in the retinal network

Authors: Jihene Malek; Ahmad Taher Azar

Addresses: Faculty of Sciences, Electronics and Micro-Electronic Laboratory, Monastir University, Monastir, Tunisia ' Faculty of Computers and Information, Benha University, Egypt; Nanoelectronics Integrated Systems Center (NISC), Nile University, Egypt

Abstract: The retina's high oxygen demands and the retinal vasculature's relatively sparse nature are assumed to contribute to the retina's specific vulnerability to vascular diseases. This study has been designed to model the oxygen transport in physiologically realistic retinal networks. A computational fluid dynamics study has been conducted to investigate the effect of topological changes on the oxygen partial pressure distribution in retinal blood vessels. The Navier Stokes equations for blood flow and the mass transport equation for oxygen have been coupled and solved simultaneously for the laminar flow mass transfer problem. The mean oxygen saturation of a healthy eye has been 93% in retinal arterioles and 58% in venules. The arteriovenous difference has been 35%. For a patient with a central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO), the mean oxygen saturation has been 33%. The findings from the analysis are generally consistent with a lot of previous experimental measurements and clinical data available in the literature, demonstrating the efficiency of our model for predicting the oxygen distribution in the retinal networks. This paves the way for a new research and applications for simulating inaccessible cases from experimental studies.

Keywords: blood flow modelling; oxygen transport; retinal circulation; retinal venous; fundus images; retinal networks; computational fluid dynamics; CFD; topological changes; pressure distribution; retinal blood vessels; laminar flow; mass transfer; central retinal vein occlusion; CRVO; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIC.2016.081138

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, 2016 Vol.26 No.4, pp.361 - 371

Received: 17 Nov 2015
Accepted: 11 Jan 2016
Published online: 24 Dec 2016 *

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