Post-treatment hemodynamics of a basilar aneurysm and bifurcation

To investigate whether or not a successful aneurysm treatment procedure can subject a parent artery to harmful hemodynamic stresses, computational fluid dynamics simulations are performed on a patient-specific basilar aneurysm and bifurcation before and after a virtual endovascular treatment. Prior to treatment, the aneurysm at systole is filled with a periodic train of vortex tubes, which form at the aneurysm neck and advect upwards into the dome. Following the treatment procedure however, the motion of the vortex train is inhibited by the aneurysm filling material, which confines the vortex tubes to the region beneath the aneurysm neck. Analysis of the post-treatment flow field indicates that the impingement of the basilar artery flow upon the treated aneurysm neck and the close proximity of a vortex tube to the parent artery wall increase the maximum wall shear stresses to values approximately equal to 50 Pa at systole. Calculation of the time-averaged wall shear stresses indicates that there is a 1.4 x 10(-7) m(2) area on the parent artery exposed to wall shear stresses greater than 37.9 Pa, a value shown by Fry [Circ. Res. 22(2):165-197, 1968] to cause severe damage to the endothelial cells that line the artery wall. The results of this study demonstrate that it is possible for a treatment procedure, which successfully isolates the aneurysm from the circulation and leaves no aneurysm neck remnant, to elevate the hemodynamic stresses to levels that are injurious to the artery wall.