Aortic Wall Shear Stress
Dilation and aneurysm formation in the aorta represents 30,000 to 60,000 deaths per year in the United States. Current clinical guidelines for patients management in such diseases are mostly based on aortic anatomical indices, while the involvement of blood flow hemodynamics was previously hypothesized. Accordingly, our aims are to design new methods to provide patient-specific indices of aortic hemodynamics such as wall shear stress from 4D flow MRI data, to validate such indices in vivo against histological markers of tissue dysfunction and to demonstrate their clinical usefulness in the setting of various diseases involving aortopathy such as bicuspid aortic valve disease or aortic valve stenosis.
Investigators: Alex Barker (PhD), Michael Markl (PhD), Susanne Schnell (PhD), James Carr (MD), Jeremy Collins (MD), Paul Fedak (MD), Jyothy Puthumana (MD), Chris Malaisrie (MD), Patrick McCarthy (MD)
Funding: National Institute of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Publication:
Characterization of Abnormal Wall Shear Stress Using 4D Flow MRI in Human Bicuspid Aortopathy
A methodology to detect abnormal relative wall shear stress on the full surface of the thoracic aorta using four-dimensional flow MRI
Bicuspid aortic cusp fusion morphology alters aortic three-dimensional outflow patterns, wall shear stress, and expression of aortopathy