Estimation of Coronary Wall Strain Distribution Based on 3-D Reconstruction from Intravascular Ultrasound Images

Quantitative assessment of coronary wall strain is valuable for evaluating the elasticity of arterial walls and for predicting the vulnerability of atherosclerotic plaques. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of flow structure interaction (FSI) and stent wall interaction simulation is presented to describe the local volumetric distribution of the arterial wall strain caused by blood flow and stent implantation from the morphologically realistic 3-D vascular geometry reconstructed from intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) images. The experimental results and in vivo data showed that the morphology of the vessel wall and plaque and strain distribution could be visually displayed. The location of the plaques can be determined. We visually compared the hemodynamic characteristics of normal and pathologically changed tissues according to the wall strain distribution.