Numerical study of blood flow in an anatomically realistic aorto-iliac bifurcation generated from MRI data

• Published in: Magnetic resonance in medicine Vol. 43; no. 4; pp. 565 - 576
• Main Authors: Long, Q., Xu, X.Y., Bourne, M., Griffith, T.M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.04.2000; Williams & Wilkins
• Subjects: Adult; Aorta - anatomy & histology; Aorta - physiology; aorto-iliac bifurcation; Biological and medical sciences; Blood Flow Velocity; Cardiovascular system; computational fluid dynamics; Computer Simulation; Humans; Iliac Artery - anatomy & histology; Iliac Artery - physiology; Image Enhancement - methods; Investigative techniques, diagnostic techniques (general aspects); Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical sciences; Models, Cardiovascular; non-planarity; Radiodiagnosis. Nmr imagery. Nmr spectrometry; Reproducibility of Results; Sensitivity and Specificity; Statistics as Topic; Vascular Patency - physiology; wall shear stress; Human; Computational fluid dynamics; Aortoiliac; Bifurcation; Lower limb; Anatomy; Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging; Artery; Geometrical model; Image reconstruction; Blood flow; Time of flight method; Shear stress; Medical imagery; Circulatory system; Hemodynamics
• ISSN: 0740-3194; 1522-2594
• DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1522-2594(200004)43:4<565::AID-MRM11>3.0.CO;2-L

Magnetic resonance imaging and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have been used in combination to simulate flow patterns at the human aorto‐iliac bifurcation. Vascular anatomy was reconstructed from stacked two‐dimensional (2D) time‐of‐flight images, and revealed asymmetric, nonplanar geometry with curvature in the abdominal aorta and right iliac artery. The left iliac artery was straight and exhibited a smaller take off angle than the right iliac artery. The anatomical reconstruction was used to generate a computational mesh and obtain CFD predictions of flow and wall shear stress (WSS) within the region of interest. The dynamic boundary conditions necessary were specified by 2D cine phase contrast measurements of velocity profiles in each component vessel. Predicted flow patterns were in good quantitative agreement with experiment and demonstrated major differences in WSS distributions between the iliac arteries. This noninvasive approach has considerable potential to evaluate local geometries and WSS as risk factors for arterial disease in individual subjects. Magn Reson Med 43:565–576, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.