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Abstract #0667

Wall Shear Stress as a Stimulus for Intra-Plaque Hemorrhage in Carotid Atherosclerotic Plaque: An MRI-Based CFD Pilot Study

Gador Canton1, Huijun Chen1, Minako Oikawa2, Hunter R. Underhill1, Wei Yu3, Thomas S. Hatsukami4, Chun Yuan1, William Sean Kerwin1

1Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States; 2Cardiovascular Medicine, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan; 3Radiology, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Beijing, China; 4Surgery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States


The aim of this study was to explore the hypothesis that intra-plaque hemorrhage, a feature associated with adverse outcomes and atherosclerotic plaque progression, is more likely to occur in plaques with elevated levels of wall shear stress (WSS). We used multi-sequence MRI to characterize seven human carotid atherosclerotic plaques and an MRI-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model to solve the equations governing the blood flow. The results from this pilot study indicate a possible link between the presence of hemorrhage within a lipid-rich necrotic core in human carotid atherosclerotic plaques and the shear stress force acting on the luminal surface.