Simulation of patient-specific atherosclerotic plaque growth in the carotid arteries
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Augmented digital twin models integrating the patient-specific clinical data with the results from Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations and with specific models for the prediction of the evolution of the considered pathology can be used to obtain reliable estimations of the possible development and progression of cardiovascular diseases. Among these pathologies, we focus herein on the progression of atherosclerotic plaques in carotid arteries, which usually develop in arterial bifurcations or regions with marked curvature. We considered patient-specific geometry and cardiac-cycle flow-rate waveform from in-vivo data of healthy and diseased carotid arteries and we carried out numerical simulations coupled with different models of atherosclerotic plaque growth. The results of the CFD simulations of arteriosclerosis plaque progression obtained with the models are compared together and with in-vivo data. Moreover, uncertainty quantification studies address and single out the effect of some model parameters on the predictions of the output quantities of interest and on the estimations of the patient-specific risk factor.
