In-vivo coronary flow profiling based on biplane angiograms: influence of geometric simplifications on the three-dimensional reconstruction and wall shear stress calculation

Background  

Clinical studies suggest that local wall shear stress (WSS) patterns modulate the site and the progression of atherosclerotic lesions. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods based on in-vivo three-dimensional vessel reconstructions have recently been shown to provide prognostically relevant WSS data. This approach is, however, complex and time-consuming. Methodological simplifications are desirable in porting this approach from bench to bedside. The impact of such simplifications on the accuracy of geometry and wall shear stress calculations has to be investigated.