Optical coherence tomography-based patient-specific coronary artery reconstruction and fluid-structure interaction...

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular biomechanics
• Medical imaging analysis
• Computational modeling

Background:

• Plaque rupture is linked to mechanical stress, making stress assessment crucial for vulnerability evaluation.
• Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides high-resolution imaging for detailed coronary plaque geometry reconstruction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate mechanical stress distribution in patient-specific coronary plaque models.
• To compare the accuracy of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulations against structure-only and computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-only models for plaque stress analysis.

Main Methods:

• Patient-specific coronary models were created using OCT and angiography data.
• Fully coupled FSI simulations were performed to analyze principal stress and wall shear stress (WSS).
• FSI results were compared with structure-only and CFD-only models.

Main Results:

• Plaque cap thickness significantly influences stress levels, with thinner caps experiencing doubled stress.
• FSI models identified abnormal WSS around lipid cores.
• FSI simulations showed significantly different WSS compared to CFD-only models (17.95% and 22.66% higher in CFD-only).

Conclusions:

• OCT-based FSI models are valuable for assessing coronary plaque vulnerability.
• Accurate WSS quantification for plaque rupture risk assessment necessitates FSI simulations.
• FSI models detect more low WSS areas due to arterial wall flexibility, crucial for identifying atherosclerosis-prone regions.