Modeling hemodynamic forces in carotid artery based on local geometric features.

Hemodynamic wall shear stress (WSS) plays an important role in the initiation and progression of carotid atherosclerosis. This study aims at developing a technique to model WSS distribution based on point-wise geometric features that can be efficiently computed. Computational fluid dynamic analysis was performed for ten subjects. Surface curvatures, vascular radius, rate of change of radius along the longitudinal direction and standardized longitudinal/circumferential coordinates were computed on a point-wise basis for the arteries. Each of these point-wise geometric parameters was transformed to maximize the adjusted correlation coefficient. The transformed geometric parameters subsequently served as input variables of a multiple regression model. Multiple regression analysis revealed a significant relationship (\(p<0.0001\)) between WSS and three geometric parameters in internal and external carotid arteries (ICA and ECA). These three geometric parameters include vascular radius (ICA: \(\beta = 0.50\), ECA: \(\beta = 0.23\)), standardized longitudinal/circumference coordinates (ICA: \(\beta = 0.16\), ECA: \(\beta = 0.27\)) and Gaussian curvature (ICA: \(\beta = -0.24\), ECA: \(\beta = -0.19\)). The results suggest that the proposed geometric parameters can serve as risk indicator in large-scale clinical studies aiming at elucidating the roles of local geometric risk of atherosclerosis.