In Vivo Intravascular Ultrasound-Based 3D Thin-Walled Model for Human Coronary Plaque Progression Study: Transforming Research to Potential Commercialization

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the world. Considerable research has been done linking various mechanical risk factors to plaque progression and rupture. However, methods transforming research results to clinical implementation are limited by time-consuming processes. In this study, a 3D thin-wall (TW) model was developed to approximate the 3D fluid–structure interaction (FSI) model to save time for clinical implementations. Results from one patient data (100 TW models) indicated that the relative errors of the average plaque wall stress (APWS) and strain were less than 7%, meanwhile the correlation results of the TW models were similar with that of the FSI models.