CORRELATION BETWEEN SHEAR STRESS AND WALL THICKENING IN HUMAN CAROTID ARTERY: I. PRELIMINARY REPEATABILITY STUDIES OF MRI DATA

摘要

Monitoring the blood flow pattern inside the arteries over a period of time can give significant insights into the development of atherosclerotic plaques. However, the validity of the data collected over a period of time to perform blood flow analysis in the arteries should be determined before hand. In this work, a validity check is performed for using the MRI data of a carotid vessel collected at different times to perform a blood flow analysis. The collected MRI data is used to reconstruct a three-dimensional (3D) geometry of the carotid bifurcation and this geometry is used in a finite element model to conduct a blood flow analysis. This process is repeated for the two different sets of MRI data of an individual, collected at two different periods in time. The results of the blood flow pattern inside the carotid for the two different cases are very similar. This work shows that the procedure is robust and precise to give highly repeatable results for the blood flow pattern.