The role of geometry of the human carotid bifurcation in the formation and development of atherosclerotic plaque

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality and is result of complex relations among blood, flow parameters and vessel geometry. Its apparent link to wall shear stress (WSS) has led to considerable interest in the in vivo estimation of WSS. An automated method is described for creating a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) mesh of a blood vessel lumen geometry based on in vivo measurements taken by magnetic resonance (MR) images, in order to examine the velocity and wall shear stress inside a volunteer's specific geometry. Numerical results arising from six carotid bifurcations of three volunteers, have shown that areas with low wall shear stress correlate best with the areas where, as established in medical literature, atherosclerotic plaque develops. © 2010 International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering.