Phase-Contrast MRI measurements in intra-cranial aneurysms in-vivo of flow patterns velocity fields and wall shear stress: A comparison with CFD

摘要

Evolution of intracranial aneurysms is known to be related to hemodynamic forces such as Wall Shear Stress (WSS) and Maximum Shear Stress (MSS). Estimation of these parameters can be performed using numerical simulations (computational fluid dynamics - CFD) but can also be directly measured with MRI using a time-dependent 3D phase-contrast sequence with encoding of each of the three components of the velocity vectors (7D-MRV). In order to study the accuracy of 7D-MRV in estimating these parameters in–vivo, in comparison with CFD, 7D-MRV and patient-specific CFD modeling was performed for three patients who had intracranial aneurysms. A visual and a quantitative analysis of the flow pattern and the distribution of velocities, MSS, and WSS were performed between the two techniques. Spearman's coefficients of correlation between the two techniques were 0.56 for the velocity field, 0.48 for MSS and 0.59 for WSS. Visual analysis and Bland-Altman plots showed a good agreement for flow pattern and velocities but large discrepancies for MSS and WSS. In conclusion, these results indicate that in-vivo 7D-MRV can be used to measure velocity flow fields and to estimate MSS and WSS but is not currently able to provide accurate quantification of these two last parameters.