Vascular biomechanics and molecular disease activity in the thoracic aorta: a novel imaging method

Figures

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  Figure 1. Workflow methodology.

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  Figure 2. Bland–Altman plots of intra-observer repeatability of WSS and PET metrics measured within 1.4 ± 0.6 cm2 ROIs. (A) Magnitude WSS, (B) axial WSS, (C) circumferential WSS, and (D) WSS angle, (E) average 18F-NaF uptake, and (F) 95th centile 18F-NaF uptake. Blue line shows the intra-observer difference, and red dotted lines show the 95% limits of agreement for measurements. LOA = limit-of-agreement.

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  Figure 3. (A) Representative case of peak systolic velocity field, magnitude WSS, axial WSS, circumferential WSS in a patient with BAV with left–right fusion. Streamlines show helical flow in the inner curvature, higher magnitude WSS and circumferential WSS in the proximal aorta compared with the distal aorta. (B) Boxplot of the regional magnitude WSS analysis comparing *P < 0.05inner curvature vs. outer curvature and †P < 0.05 compared with aortic root, #P < 0.05 compared with proximal ascending aorta.

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  Figure 4. (A) A map of the average 18F-NaF uptake made within 1.4 ± 0.6 cm2 ROIs in ascending aorta across all patients. Bottom is the aortic valve area, top is the aorta at the innominate artery branch, middle represent outer curvature, and left and right border are the inner curvature. Black areas represent regions with contamination from adjacent structures (e.g. aortic valve, bone), which were excluded from analysis. Regions with highest 18F-NaF uptake values are mainly located in the inner curvature of the proximal and distal ascending aorta. (B) Bar graph of the regional 18F-NaF uptake within the aorta *P < 0.05 comparing inner curvature vs. outer curvature, †P < 0.05 compared with aortic root, #P < 0.05 compared to proximal ascending aorta. A, anterior; AoV, aortic valve; AoArch, aortic arch; I, inner; O, outer; P, posterior.