4D MRI-based wall shear stress quantification in the carotid bifurcation: a validation study in volunteers using computational fluid dynamics

Background Remodeling of the vessel wall is associated with wall shear stress (WSS) magnitude (Malek, 1999). It has been suggested that local low or high WSS may respectively promote or prevent atherosclerotic lesions in the carotid vessel wall. The current procedure for WSS quantification is computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which is time-consuming and not always patient-specific. In the past years, methods that derive WSS directly from MRI 4D flow measurements have been developed. These allow patient-specific WSS quantifications while using less computational power and time. We tested to what extent MRI-based WSS maps match the patient-specific CFD-base maps. To accomplish this, a pipeline for simultaneous MRIand CFD-based WSS calculations was developed and applied to the carotid arteries of 6 healthy volunteers.