Patient-specific hemodynamics modeling of carotid artery stenosis in a swine model based on 3D rotational angiography

Carotid stenosis is a common physiological abnormality that can cause a stroke or even death. For a clear understanding of its forming mechanism and potential damage, a hemodynamics model of carotid artery stenosis in a swine is built and analyzed based on surgery and ultrasonography. Eight Chinese mini-swine were partially ligated; transcranial Doppler and 3D DSA are employed to obtain physiological parameters for reconstructing the in vivo experimental vessel model. A numerical model of the swine blood flow and a detailed swine carotid vessel model with stenosis are proposed. The empirical function of WSS was validated for the swine model. Two models, a rigid wall and an elastic wall are precisely compared for pathological analysis of vascular diseases, such as carotid atherosclerosis and hemangioma. The elastic wall model performs better in representing experimental conditions while the rigid wall is much more efficient. Both models show that stenosis has a significant effect on resulting complex blood flow behavior and concentrated WSS distribution.