High time-averaged wall shear stress and low oscillatory shear index were significantly associated with larger necrotic core size and macrophage area in advanced human carotid plaques.
Cross-Sectional (n=11)
No
Do local wall shear stress metrics (TAWSS and OSI) correlate with histological features of plaque vulnerability in patients with advanced carotid atherosclerosis?
High time-averaged wall shear stress and low oscillatory shear index correlate with larger necrotic cores and macrophage areas in advanced carotid plaques, suggesting a link between local hemodynamics and plaque vulnerability.
p-value: p=0.000
The role of wall shear stress (WSS) in atherosclerotic plaque development is evident, but the relation between WSS and plaque composition in advanced atherosclerosis, potentially resulting in plaque destabilization, is a topic of discussion. Using our previously developed image registration pipeline, we investigated the relation between two WSS metrics, time-averaged WSS (TAWSS) and the oscillatory shear index (OSI), and the local histologically determined plaque composition in a set of advanced human carotid plaques. Our dataset of 11 carotid endarterectomy samples yielded 87 histological cross-sections, which yielded 511 radial bins for analysis. Both TAWSS and OSI values were subdivided into patient-specific low, mid, and high tertiles. This cross-sectional study shows that necrotic core (NC) size and macrophage area are significantly larger in areas exposed to high TAWSS or low OSI. Local TAWSS and OSI tertile values were generally inversely related, as described in the literature, but other combinations were also found. Investigating the relation between plaque vulnerability features and different combinations of TAWSS and OSI tertile values revealed a significantly larger cap thickness in areas exposed to both low TAWSS and low OSI. In conclusion, our study confirmed previous findings, correlating high TAWSS to larger macrophage areas and necrotic core sizes. In addition, our study demonstrated new relations, correlating low OSI to larger macrophage areas, and a combination of low TAWSS and low OSI to larger cap thickness.
Moerman et al. (Fri,) conducted a cross-sectional in Advanced human carotid atherosclerosis (n=11). Wall shear stress (TAWSS and OSI) vs. Low vs mid vs high tertiles of TAWSS and OSI was evaluated on Necrotic core size and macrophage area (p=0.000). High time-averaged wall shear stress and low oscillatory shear index were significantly associated with larger necrotic core size and macrophage area in advanced human carotid plaques.