A Novel Method to Calculate Vectorial Wall Shear Stress from 4D Phase Contrast MRI: Analytical and In-Vivo Validation in the Common Carotid Artery at Different Resolutions

Wouter V. Potters¹, Pim van Ooij¹, ², Ed vanBavel², Aart J. Nederveen¹

Wall shear stress (WSS) is the tangential force of flowing blood on the vessel wall. Calculation of WSS remains challenging. A novel method is presented to calculate time-resolved vectorial WSS along the entire vessel wall. The method was validated in software phantoms and in-vivo datasets of the common carotid artery at multiple resolutions. Results showed convergence of WSS towards theoretical WSS for the phantom data, which effect was reproduced in in-vivo data.