A numerical study of the effect of varied blood pressure on the stability of carotid atherosclerotic plaque

BioMedical Engineering OnLine

Huahua Xiong⁶  Xin Liu⁵  Xiaohong Tian¹  Lina Pu⁵  Heye Zhang³  Minhua Lu⁷  Wenhua Huang⁴  Yuan-Ting Zhang² 

[1] Cardiac Electrocardiogram Room, The Second Peoples’ Hospital of Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518029, China

[2] Joint Research Centre for Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong

[3] University Town, 1068 Xueyuan Ave., Xili, Nanshan district, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China

[4] Institute of Clinical Anatomy, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China

[5] Institute of Biomedical and Health Engineering, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Shenzhen, China

[6] Department of Ultrasound, The Second People’s Hospital of Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China

[7] Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

关键词: Computational mechanical analysis;    Blood pressure;    Stress distribution;    Atherosclerotic plaque vulnerability;   

Others  :  1084220
DOI  :  10.1186/1475-925X-13-152

 received in 2014-08-29, accepted in 2014-10-22,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Blood pressure (BP) is associated with early atherosclerosis and plaque rupture because the BP variability can significantly affect the blood flow velocity and shear stress over the plaque. However, the mechanical response of BP variability to the plaque remains unclear. Therefore, we investigated the correlation between different maximum systolic blood pressure (SBP) and the stress distribution on plaque, as well as the stress over the plaque and blood velocity around the plaque using different BP variations, which are the BP variability in different phases during one cardiac cycle and beat-to-beat BP variability.

Method

We established a two-dimensional artery model with stenosis at the degree of 62.5%. Eight combinations of pulsatile pressure gradients between the inflow and outflow were implemented at the model. Three levels of fibrous cap thickness were taken into consideration to investigate the additional effect on the BP variability. Wall shear stress and stress/strain distribution over the plaque were derived as well as the oscillation shear index (OSI) to analyze the impact of the changing rate of BP.

Result

The stresses at diastole were 2.5% ± 1.8% lower than that at systole under the same pressure drop during one cycle. It was also found that elevated SBP might cause the immediate increment of stress in the present cycle (292% ± 72.3%), but slight reduction in the successive cycle (0.48% ± 0.4%).

Conclusion

The stress/strain distribution over the plaque is sensitive to the BP variability during one cardiac cycle, and the beat-to-beat BP variability could cause considerable impact on the progression of atherosclerosis in long-term.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Xiong et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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