Human coronary plaque wall thickness correlated positively with flow shear stress and negatively with plaque wall stress: an IVUS-based fluid-structure interaction multi-patient study

BioMedical Engineering OnLine

Rui Fan³  Dalin Tang⁴  Chun Yang⁹  Jie Zheng⁶  Richard Bach⁸  Liang Wang⁵  David Muccigrosso⁶  Kristen Billiar²  Jian Zhu⁷  Genshan Ma⁷  Akiko Maehara¹  Gary S Mintz¹ 

[1] The Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

[2] Department of Biomedical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA

[3] School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China

[4] Mathematical Sciences Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA

[5] School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

[6] Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA

[7] Department of Cardiology, Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China

[8] Cardiovascular Division, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO, USA

[9] Network Technology Research Institute, China United Network Communications Co., Ltd., Beijing, China

关键词: IVUS;    Plaque progression;    Plaque rupture;    Fluid-structure interaction;    Coronary;   

Others  :  795068
DOI  :  10.1186/1475-925X-13-32

 received in 2013-12-24, accepted in 2014-03-07,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Atherosclerotic plaque progression and rupture are believed to be associated with mechanical stress conditions. In this paper, patient-specific in vivo intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) coronary plaque image data were used to construct computational models with fluid-structure interaction (FSI) and cyclic bending to investigate correlations between plaque wall thickness and both flow shear stress and plaque wall stress conditions.

Methods

IVUS data were acquired from 10 patients after voluntary informed consent. The X-ray angiogram was obtained prior to the pullback of the IVUS catheter to determine the location of the coronary artery stenosis, vessel curvature and cardiac motion. Cyclic bending was specified in the model representing the effect by heart contraction. 3D anisotropic FSI models were constructed and solved to obtain flow shear stress (FSS) and plaque wall stress (PWS) values. FSS and PWS values were obtained for statistical analysis. Correlations with p < 0.05 were deemed significant.

Results

Nine out of the 10 patients showed positive correlation between wall thickness and flow shear stress. The mean Pearson correlation r-value was 0.278 ± 0.181. Similarly, 9 out of the 10 patients showed negative correlation between wall thickness and plaque wall stress. The mean Pearson correlation r-value was -0.530 ± 0.210.

Conclusion

Our results showed that plaque vessel wall thickness correlated positively with FSS and negatively with PWS. The patient-specific IVUS-based modeling approach has the potential to be used to investigate and identify possible mechanisms governing plaque progression and rupture and assist in diagnosis and intervention procedures. This represents a new direction of research. Further investigations using more patient follow-up data are warranted.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Fan et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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