scholarly journals High-frequency murine ultrasound provides enhanced metrics of BAPN-induced AAA growth

2019 ◽  
Vol 317 (5) ◽  
pp. H981-H990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Romary ◽  
Alycia G. Berman ◽  
Craig J. Goergen

An abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), defined as a pathological expansion of the largest artery in the abdomen, is a common vascular disease that frequently leads to death if rupture occurs. Once diagnosed, clinicians typically evaluate the rupture risk based on maximum diameter of the aneurysm, a limited metric that is not accurate for all patients. In this study, we worked to evaluate additional distinguishing factors between growing and stable murine aneurysms toward the aim of eventually improving clinical rupture risk assessment. With the use of a relatively new mouse model that combines surgical application of topical elastase to cause initial aortic expansion and a lysyl oxidase inhibitor, β-aminopropionitrile (BAPN), in the drinking water, we were able to create large AAAs that expanded over 28 days. We further sought to develop and demonstrate applications of advanced imaging approaches, including four-dimensional ultrasound (4DUS), to evaluate alternative geometric and biomechanical parameters between 1) growing AAAs, 2) stable AAAs, and 3) nonaneurysmal control mice. Our study confirmed the reproducibility of this murine model and found reduced circumferential strain values, greater tortuosity, and increased elastin degradation in mice with aneurysms. We also found that expanding murine AAAs had increased peak wall stress and surface area per length compared with stable aneurysms. The results from this work provide clear growth patterns associated with BAPN-elastase murine aneurysms and demonstrate the capabilities of high-frequency ultrasound. These data could help lay the groundwork for improving insight into clinical prediction of AAA expansion. NEW & NOTEWORTHY This work characterizes a relatively new murine model of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) by quantifying vascular strain, stress, and geometry. Furthermore, Green-Lagrange strain was calculated with a novel mapping approach using four-dimensional ultrasound. We also compared growing and stable AAAs, finding peak wall stress and surface area per length to be most indicative of growth. In all AAAs, strain and elastin health declined, whereas tortuosity increased.

Author(s):  
Lambert Speelman ◽  
E. Marielle H. Bosboom ◽  
Geert Willem H. Schurink ◽  
Jaap Buth ◽  
Marcel Breeuwer ◽  
...  

In the decision for surgical repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs), the risk of rupture is weighed carefully against the risk of the surgical procedure. Currently, AAA diameter is the main factor that determines the decision for surgery. However, in rupture risk estimation AAA wall stress has higher sensitivity and specificity than maximum diameter [1]. Moreover, peak wall stress was higher for ruptured than for non-ruptured or asymptomatic AAAs [2, 3].


Author(s):  
Avinash Ayyalasomayajula ◽  
Bruce R. Simon ◽  
Jonathan P. Vande Geest

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a progressive dilation of the infrarenal aorta and results in a significant alteration in local hemodynamic environment [1]. While an aneurysmal diameter of 5.5cm is typically classified as being of high risk, recent studies have demonstrated that maximum wall stress could be a better indicator of an AAA rupture than maximum diameter [2]. The wall stress is greatly influenced by the blood pressure, aneurysm diameter, shape, wall thickness and the presence of thrombus. The work done by Finol et al. suggested that hemodynamic pressure variations have an insignificant effect on AAA wall stress and that primarily the shape of the aneurysm determines the stress distribution. They noted that for peak wall stress studies the static pressure conditions would suffice as the in vivo conditions. Wang et al have developed an isotropic hyperelastic constitutive model for the intraluminal thrombus (ILT). Such models have been used to study the stress distributions in patient specific AAAs [3, 4].


2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Shang ◽  
Grace Wang ◽  
Ronald Fairman ◽  
Benjamin Jackson

Objective: Women with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) exhibit more rapid aneurysm growth and greater rupture risk at equivalent diameters relative to men. Evidence suggests that biomechanical peak wall stress (PWS) derived from finite element analysis of AAAs is a superior predictor of rupture compared to maximum transverse diameter (MTD). This study aimed to investigate differences in the calculated PWS of AAAs between men and women. Method: Men (n=35) and women (n=35) with infrarenal AAAs with 45-55mm MTD undergoing CTA were identified. Customized image processing algorithms extracted patient-specific AAA geometries from raw DICOM images. The resulting aortic reconstructions incorporated patient-specific and regionally resolved aortic wall thickness, intraluminal thrombus, and wall calcifications. Aortic models were loaded with 120mmHg blood pressure using commercially available FEA solvers. Results: Peak wall stress was found to be significantly higher in women (299±51 vs 257±53 kPA, P=0.001, see Figure). Neither MTD (50.5±3.1 vs 49.8±2.9 mm, P=0.34), mean aortic wall thickness (2.38±0.52 vs 2.34±0.50 mm, P=0.69), nor wall thickness at location of PWS (2.36±0.60 vs 2.20±0.46 mm, P=0.20) varied by sex. While there were no sex-associated differences in aneurysm volume (86.6±27.0 vs 94.8±25.5 cm 3 , P=0.76) or intraluminal thrombus volume (14.2±11.7 vs 16.3±13.4 mm, P=0.33), women’s AAAs had significantly increased maximum Gaussian curvature (0.032±0.011 vs 0.025±0.015 mm -2 , P=0.03). Conclusion: Comparably sized AAAs in women were shown to have significantly higher peak wall stress. Maximum gaussian curvature, a measure of aneurysm morphology, was significantly different between the two groups. These results suggest that men and women possess distinct aneurysm geometries, and that PWS-derived rupture risk prediction may provide a more reliable estimator of rupture risk in all patients.


2004 ◽  
Vol 1-2 ◽  
pp. 245-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arindam Chaudhuri ◽  
Leslie E. Ansdell ◽  
Mohan Adiseshiah ◽  
Anthony J. Grass

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) are abnormal aortic dilatations that are prone to rupture, with fatal consequences. Synthetic aneurysm models are being used to assess in vivo stress characteristics of aneurysms before and after surgical reinforcement. This study seeks to assess peak wall stress characteristics in a latex life- like model. A life-like non-axisymmetric latex AAA model, constructed from a 3D computed tomographic reconstruction of a real AAA, was incorporated into a pulsatile flow unit (PFU) to simulate the cardiac output. Strain gauges were placed at the neck (n= 2 x 3), inflection point (the junction of neck and sac, n=4 x 3) and maximum anteroposterior diameter (n=4 x 3). The arterial pressure settings used were 130/90 and 140/100mmHg, termed the low and high setting respectively. Strain readings were obtained at 10Hz over 30 seconds using a data logger. Stress was derived using the relationship between stress and Young’s modulus (E= 5.151872 Nmm-2). Peak wall stresses were statistically analysed over the two pressure settings using ANOVA in Minitab 13. The highest stresses were noted at the inflection point and not at the maximum diameter, as might have been expected. Peak inflection point stress anteriorly measured 394.69 (SD 218.1) x10-4 N/cm2 in the low setting, increasing to 715.39(SD 230.32) in the high setting (p<0.001). Posteriorly, peak wall stress measured as high as 373.61(SD207.24) x10-4 Ncm-2 in the low setting, and increased to 1053.32 (SD 347.01) x10-4 Ncm-2 in the high setting (p<0.001). High posterior stress conforms to in vivo studies. Peak wall stresses were not as high in the sac (range 35.08-204.98 x 10-4 Ncm-2 in the low setting and 54.66- 322.73 x 10-4 Ncm-2 in the high setting). An increase in blood pressure caused an increase only in the anterior and lateral, but not the posterior aspect of the sac (p<0.05). Abdominal aortic wall stress is highest at the inflection point, and is affected by blood pressure, which suggests that it is the area most likely to rupture and is critical to reinforcement of the AAA. These readings are lower than stress noticed in vivo due to the lower E of latex as compared to aneurysmal aorta, which structurally is primarily a multilaminate of elastin and collagen; however, the trends themselves may parallel those that occur in AAAs before and after endovascular or open grafting, and therefore justify artificial stress modelling of AAAs.


2008 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Heng ◽  
Michael J. Fagan ◽  
Jason W. Collier ◽  
Grishma Desai ◽  
Peter T. McCollum ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Barry J. Doyle ◽  
Anthony Callanan ◽  
John Killion ◽  
Timothy M. McGloughlin

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) remain a significant cause of death in the Western world with over 15,000 deaths per year in the US linked to AAA rupture. Recent research [1] has questioned the use of maximum diameter as a definitive risk parameter as it is now believed that alternative factors may be important in rupture-prediction. Wall stress was shown to be a better predictor than diameter of rupture [1], with biomechanics-based rupture indices [2,3] and asymmetry also reported to have potential clinical applicability [4]. However, the majority of numerical methods used to form these alternative rupture parameters are without rigorous experimental validation, and therefore may not be as accurate as believed. Validated experiments are required in order to convince the clinical community of the worth of numerical tools such as finite element analysis (FEA) in AAA risk-prediction. Strain gauges have been used in the past to determine the strain on an AAA [5], however, the photoelastic method has also proved to be a useful tool in AAA biomechanics [6]. This paper examines the approach using three medium-sized patient-specific AAA cases at realistic pressure loadings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tejas Canchi ◽  
Sourav S. Patnaik ◽  
Hong N. Nguyen ◽  
E. Y. K. Ng ◽  
Sriram Narayanan ◽  
...  

Abstract In this work, we provide a quantitative assessment of the biomechanical and geometric features that characterize abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) models generated from 19 Asian and 19 Caucasian diameter-matched AAA patients. 3D patient-specific finite element models were generated and used to compute peak wall stress (PWS), 99th percentile wall stress (99th WS), and spatially averaged wall stress (AWS) for each AAA. In addition, 51 global geometric indices were calculated, which quantify the wall thickness, shape, and curvature of each AAA. The indices were correlated with 99th WS (the only biomechanical metric that exhibited significant association with geometric indices) using Spearman's correlation and subsequently with multivariate linear regression using backward elimination. For the Asian AAA group, 99th WS was highly correlated (R2 = 0.77) with three geometric indices, namely tortuosity, intraluminal thrombus volume, and area-averaged Gaussian curvature. Similarly, 99th WS in the Caucasian AAA group was highly correlated (R2 = 0.87) with six geometric indices, namely maximum AAA diameter, distal neck diameter, diameter–height ratio, minimum wall thickness variance, mode of the wall thickness variance, and area-averaged Gaussian curvature. Significant differences were found between the two groups for ten geometric indices; however, no differences were found for any of their respective biomechanical attributes. Assuming maximum AAA diameter as the most predictive metric for wall stress was found to be imprecise: 24% and 28% accuracy for the Asian and Caucasian groups, respectively. This investigation reveals that geometric indices other than maximum AAA diameter can serve as predictors of wall stress, and potentially for assessment of aneurysm rupture risk, in the Asian and Caucasian AAA populations.


Author(s):  
Evelyne van Dam ◽  
Marcel Rutten ◽  
Frans van de Vosse

Rupture risk of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) based on wall stress analysis may be superior to the currently used diameter-based rupture risk prediction [4; 5; 6; 7]. In patient specific computational models for wall stress analysis, the geometry of the aneurysm is obtained from CT or MR images. The wall thickness and mechanical properties are mostly assumed to be homogeneous. The pathological AAA vessel wall may contain collageneous areas, but also calcifications, cholesterol crystals and large amounts of fat cells. No research has yet focused yet on the differences in mechanical properties of the components present within the degrading AAA vessel wall.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (113) ◽  
pp. 20150852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanislav Polzer ◽  
T. Christian Gasser

A rupture risk assessment is critical to the clinical treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) patients. The biomechanical AAA rupture risk assessment quantitatively integrates many known AAA rupture risk factors but the variability of risk predictions due to model input uncertainties remains a challenging limitation. This study derives a probabilistic rupture risk index (PRRI). Specifically, the uncertainties in AAA wall thickness and wall strength were considered, and wall stress was predicted with a state-of-the-art deterministic biomechanical model. The discriminative power of PRRI was tested in a diameter-matched cohort of ruptured ( n = 7) and intact ( n = 7) AAAs and compared to alternative risk assessment methods. Computed PRRI at 1.5 mean arterial pressure was significantly ( p = 0.041) higher in ruptured AAAs (20.21(s.d. 14.15%)) than in intact AAAs (3.71(s.d. 5.77)%). PRRI showed a high sensitivity and specificity (discriminative power of 0.837) to discriminate between ruptured and intact AAA cases. The underlying statistical representation of stochastic data of wall thickness, wall strength and peak wall stress had only negligible effects on PRRI computations. Uncertainties in AAA wall stress predictions, the wide range of reported wall strength and the stochastic nature of failure motivate a probabilistic rupture risk assessment. Advanced AAA biomechanical modelling paired with a probabilistic rupture index definition as known from engineering risk assessment seems to be superior to a purely deterministic approach.


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