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Inducing Persistent Flow Disturbances Accelerates Atherogenesis And Promotes Thin Cap Fibroatheroma Development In D374y-Pcsk9 Hypercholesterolemic Minipigs, Ryan M. Pedrigi, Christian Bo Poulsen, Vikram V. Mehta, Niels Ramsing Holm, Nilesh Pareek, Anouk L. Post, Ismail Dogu Kilic, Winston A.S. Banya, Gianni Dall'ara, Alessio Mattesini, Martin M. Bjorklund, Niels P. Andersen, Anna K. Grondal, Enrico Petretto, Nicolas Foin, Justin E. Davies, Carlo Di Mario, Jacob Fog Bentzon, Hans Erik Botker, Erling Falk, Rob Krams, Ranil De Silva

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Background—Although disturbed flow is thought to play a central role in the development of advanced coronary atherosclerotic plaques, no causal relationship has been established. We evaluated whether inducing disturbed flow would cause the development of advanced coronary plaques, including thin cap fibroatheroma (TCFA).

Methods and Results—D374Y-PCSK9 hypercholesterolemic minipigs (N=5) were instrumented with an intracoronary shear-modifying stent (SMS). Frequency-domain optical coherence tomography was obtained at baseline, immediately post-stent, 19, and 34 weeks and used to compute shear stress metrics of disturbed flow. At 34 weeks, plaque type was assessed within serially-collected histological sections and co-registered to …