Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

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, Kristen Billiar, Rui Fan, Dalin Tang, Chun Yang, Jie Zheng, Richard Bach, Liang Wang, David Muccigrosso, Jian Zhu, Genshan Ma, Akiko Maehara, Gary Mintz

Kristen L. Billiar

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 …