Computational investigation of the male lower urinary tract in health and disease

In the last few years, engineering and computational methods proved their feasibility and reliability in the areas of physiology, medicine and surgery. The here reported activities show the potentialities of typical tools of bioengineering, as Computational Fluid Dynamics, Computational Structural Mechanics and Fluid Structure Interaction techniques, in the field of lower urinary tract pathophysiology. Computational models of male lower urinary tract were assumed, together with typical properties of both biological tissues and fluids, to investigate its mechano-physiology in health and disease. The reliability of these models was assessed by the mutual comparison between computational results and the investigation of data from experimental and clinical activities. Computational models allowed analyzing typical situations, as the physiological micturition and the lumen occlusion by external devices. Computational results gave information that clinical and experimental tests barely provide, as the occurrence of turbulent phenomena within urine flow, the shear stresses at the lumen wall, the external pressure that is strictly required to occlude the lumen.