A Study of the Hemodynamics of Anterior Communicating Artery Aneurysms

摘要

In this study, the effects of unequal physiologic flow conditions in the internal carotid arteries on the intra-aneurysmal hemodynamics of anterior communicating artery aneurysms were investigated. Patient-specific vascular computational fluid dynamics models of five cerebral aneurysms were constructed from bilateral 3D rotational angiography images. The aneurysmal hemodynamics was analyzed under a range of physiologic flow conditions including the effects of unequal mean flows and phase shifts between the flow waveforms of the left and right internal carotid arteries. A total of five simulations were performed for each patient, and unsteady wall shear stress (WSS) maps were created for each flow condition. Time dependent curves of average WSS magnitude over selected regions on the aneurysms were constructed and used to analyze the influence of the inflow conditions. It was found that mean flow imbalances in the feeding vessels tend to shift the regions of elevated WSS (flow impingement region) towards the dominating inflow jet and to change the magnitude of the WSS peaks. However, the overall qualitative appearance of the WSS distribution and velocity simulations is not substantially affected. In contrast, phase differences tend to increase the temporal complexity of the hemodynamic patterns and to destabilize the intra-aneurysmal flow pattern. However, these effects are less important when the A1 confluence is less symmetric, i.e. dominated by one of the A1 segments. Conditions affecting the flow characteristics in the parent arteries of cerebral aneurysms with more than one avenue of inflow should be incorporated into flow models.