Background: Atherosclerotic plaque progression and rupture are believed to be\nassociated with mechanical stress conditions. In this paper, patient-specific in vivo\nintravascular ultrasound (IVUS) coronary plaque image data were used to construct\ncomputational models with fluid-structure interaction (FSI) and cyclic bending to\ninvestigate correlations between plaque wall thickness and both flow shear stress\nand plaque wall stress conditions.\nMethods: IVUS data were acquired from 10 patients after voluntary informed\nconsent. The X-ray angiogram was obtained prior to the pullback of the IVUS catheter\nto determine the location of the coronary artery stenosis, vessel curvature and cardiac\nmotion. Cyclic bending was specified in the model representing the effect by heart\ncontraction. 3D anisotropic FSI models were constructed and solved to obtain flow\nshear stress (FSS) and plaque wall stress (PWS) values. FSS and PWS values were\nobtained for statistical analysis. Correlations with p < 0.05 were deemed significant.\nResults: Nine out of the 10 patients showed positive correlation between wall\nthickness and flow shear stress. The mean Pearson correlation r-value was 0.278 �± 0.181.\nSimilarly, 9 out of the 10 patients showed negative correlation between wall thickness\nand plaque wall stress. The mean Pearson correlation r-value was -0.530 �± 0.210.\nConclusion: Our results showed that plaque vessel wall thickness correlated positively\nwith FSS and negatively with PWS. The patient-specific IVUS-based modeling approach\nhas the potential to be used to investigate and identify possible mechanisms governing\nplaque progression and rupture and assist in diagnosis and intervention procedures.\nThis represents a new direction of research. Further investigations using more patient\nfollow-up data are warranted.
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