Deviation from optimal vascular caliber control at middle cerebral artery bifurcations harboring aneurysms.

Publication/Presentation Date

10-17-2014

Abstract

Cerebral aneurysms form preferentially at arterial bifurcations. The vascular optimality principle (VOP) decrees that minimal energy loss across bifurcations requires optimal caliber control between radii of parent (r₀) and daughter branches (r1 and r2): r₀(n)=r₁(n)+r₂(n), with n approximating three. VOP entails constant wall shear stress (WSS), an endothelial phenotype regulator. We sought to determine if caliber control is maintained in aneurysmal intracranial bifurcations. Three-dimensional rotational angiographic volumes of 159 middle cerebral artery (MCA) bifurcations (62 aneurysmal) were processed using 3D gradient edge-detection filtering, enabling threshold-insensitive radius measurement. Radius ratio (RR)=r₀(3)/(r₁(3)+r₂(3)) and estimated junction exponent (n) were compared between aneurysmal and non-aneurysmal bifurcations using Student t-test and Wilcoxon rank-sum analysis. The results show that non-aneurysmal bifurcations display optimal caliber control with mean RR of 1.05 and median n of 2.84. In contrast, aneurysmal bifurcations had significantly lower RR (0.76, p

Volume

47

Issue

13

First Page

3318

Last Page

3324

ISSN

1873-2380

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

PubMedID

25242132

Department(s)

Department of Surgery

Document Type

Article

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