Early Atherosclerotic Changes in Coronary Arteries are Associated with Endothelium Shear Stress Contraction/Expansion Variability
Although unphysiological wall shear stress (WSS) has become the consensus hemodynamic mechanism for coronary atherosclerosis, the complex biomechanical stimulus affecting atherosclerosis evolution is still undetermined. This has motivated the interest on the contraction/expansion action exerted by W...
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Published in | Annals of biomedical engineering Vol. 49; no. 9; pp. 2606 - 2621 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Cham
Springer International Publishing
01.09.2021
Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Although unphysiological wall shear stress (WSS) has become the consensus hemodynamic mechanism for coronary atherosclerosis, the complex biomechanical stimulus affecting atherosclerosis evolution is still undetermined. This has motivated the interest on the contraction/expansion action exerted by WSS on the endothelium, obtained through the WSS topological skeleton analysis. This study tests the ability of this WSS feature, alone or combined with WSS magnitude, to predict coronary wall thickness (WT) longitudinal changes. Nine coronary arteries of hypercholesterolemic minipigs underwent imaging with local WT measurement at three time points: baseline (T1), after 5.6 ± 0.9 (T2), and 7.6 ± 2.5 (T3) months. Individualized computational hemodynamic simulations were performed at T1 and T2. The variability of the WSS contraction/expansion action along the cardiac cycle was quantified using the WSS topological shear variation index (
TSVI
). Alone or combined, high
TSVI
and low WSS significantly co-localized with high WT at the same time points and were significant predictors of thickening at later time points.
TSVI
and WSS magnitude values in a physiological range appeared to play an atheroprotective role. Both the variability of the WSS contraction/expansion action and WSS magnitude, accounting for different hemodynamic effects on the endothelium, (1) are linked to WT changes and (2) concur to identify WSS features leading to coronary atherosclerosis. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Associate Editor Stefan M. Duma oversaw the review of this article. |
ISSN: | 0090-6964 1573-9686 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s10439-021-02829-5 |