A combined 4D flow MR imaging and fluid–structure interaction analysis of ascending thoracic aortic aneurysms
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Published online version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
This study aimed to characterize the altered hemodynamics and wall mechanics in ascending thoracic aortic aneurysms (ATAA) by employing fully coupled two-way fluid–structure interaction (FSI) analyses. Our FSI models incorporated hyperelastic wall mechanical properties, prestress, and patient-specific inlet velocity profiles (IVP) extracted from 4D flow magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). By performing FSI analyses on 7 patient-specific ATAA models and 6 healthy aortas, the primary objective of the study was to compare hemodynamic and biomechanical features in ATAA versus healthy controls. A secondary objective was to examine the need for 4D flow MRI-derived IVP in FSI simulations by comparing results with those using two commonly adopted idealized IVPs: Flat-IVP and Para-IVP for selected cases. Our results show that, compared to the healthy aortas, the ATAA models exhibited highly disturbed blood flow in the ascending aorta. Consequently, maximum turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) at peak systole (155.0 ± 188.4 Pa) and maximum time-averaged wall shear stress (TAWSS) (8.6 ± 6.5 Pa) were significantly higher in the ATAA cohort, compared to 0.6 ± 0.5 Pa and 2.8 ± 0.7 Pa in the healthy aortas. Peak wall stress was also nearly doubled in the ATAA group (414 ± 108 kPa vs. 215 ± 31 kPa). Additionally, comparisons of simulation results across models with different IVPs underscore the importance of prescribing 3D-IVP at the inlet, especially for ATAA cases. Using idealized IVPs in two selected ATAA models (P1 and P7) substantially reduced the maximum TKE from 571 Pa to 0.01 Pa (Flat-IVP) and 0.02 Pa (Para-IVP) in P1 and from 73 Pa to 0.01 Pa (Flat-IVP) and 0.08 Pa (Para-IVP) in P7, while the maximum TAWSS in the ascending aorta decreased from 9.6 Pa to 0.7 Pa (Flat-IVP) and 0.9 Pa (Para-IVP) in P1, and from 3.6 Pa to 1.2 Pa and 0.9 Pa, respectively, in P7. Moreover, idealized IVPs also caused the peak wall stress to reduce by up to 11.5% in P1 with severe aortic valve stenosis, and by up to 2% in P7 with mild aortic regurgitation. These results highlight the importance of FSI simulations combined with 4D flow MRI in capturing realistic hemodynamic and biomechanical changes in aneurysmal aortas.
Date Issued
2025-03-11
Date Acceptance
2025-02-21
Citation
Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology, 2025
ISSN
1617-7959
Publisher
Springer
Journal / Book Title
Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/40067580
PII: 10.1007/s10237-025-01939-6
Subjects
Ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm
Fluid–structure interaction
Four-dimensional flow magnetic resonance imaging
Inlet velocity profiles
Publication Status
Published online
Coverage Spatial
Germany
Date Publish Online
2025-03-11