Statistical analysis of symptomatic and asymptomatic patients with plaques clogged carotid artery using CFD*

Carotid atherosclerosis (stenosis) is responsible for 10-20% of all strokes. Symptoms of stroke include weakness of extremities or speech problems. Up to 77% of strokes occur without warning symptoms; a critical challenge when selecting asymptomatic patients for carotid surgery. Carotid stenosis is measured using ultrasound but cannot determine which asymptomatic patients will develop stroke. The goal of this research is to use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to identify patients at risk for future stroke.  

We present a numerical investigation of flow patterns of symptomatic and asymptomatic patients of carotid disease. CT imaging delineates plaque morphology and location, which has been used to construct CFD models for more than 60 patients (half symptomatic and half asymptomatic). An open-source CFD package, OpenFOAM, is used to simulate blood flow and to determine possible symptom-relevant parameters such as wall shear stress (WSS), pressure, turbulent kinetic energy, and velocity magnitude within a 2 cm vicinity of the carotid apex. Preliminary results suggest that WSS in the ICA is higher in the symptomatic group, suggestive of WSS as an indicator of stroke risk. Further analysis will be employed on CFD characteristics between symptomatic and asymptomatic patient groups.