CFD analysis of coronary artery blood flow from stenting and various levels of stenosis

Abstract

With coronary artery disease being one of the leading causes of death in the world, there is a need for a process that physicians can use to better identify how to treat these patients. This study uses 3D segmentation of CT-scans to develop a computer-aided model of the coronary artery. This model was used to create additional models with differing levels of stenosis and a stent. Each model was brought into ANSYS where pulsatile boundary conditions were used for computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. Equations were then found that relate the velocity and wall shear stress in the stenosed region to the stenosed radius and inlet velocity. Qualitative trends were also observed, as it was clear that velocity and wall shear stress values were higher in the cases with higher levels of stenosis. In addition, pressure was found to decrease in the stenosed region at higher levels of stenosis but increase on parallel branches of the artery. For the stented case, qualitative trends in velocity, wall shear stress, and pressure matched the healthy condition for most areas of the artery but had patches of high wall shear stress in the stented region. Though more biological properties and stenosis conditions can be added in future studies, the relationships found in this study are essential steps of progress in being able to help physicians identify the specifics of each individual case of coronary artery disease.