Key result
Iterative unloaded geometry determination improves accuracy and alters wall-stress predictions in abdominal aortic aneurysms vs. scaling.
Why the study?
Methodologies to estimate the unloaded state of abdominal aortic aneurysms for biomechanical stress calculations vary in complexity and accuracy, affecting finite element simulation results.
The choice of method for estimating the unloaded state of AAAs significantly impacts stress predictions, with the iterative method providing superior geometric accuracy.
AAA stress predictions vary by unloaded-state method; leaves open validation for clinical rupture-risk use.
Biomechanical analyses can be used to better understand the rupture risk of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) on a patient-specific basis using vascular geometries obtained from medical imaging. Methodologies of varying complexity are used to estimate the unloaded state of the imaged vessel to provide a reference configuration for finite element simulations. In this work, we compare the implementation and results of two of these methods, one based on geometric scaling and the other using an iterative determination of unloaded vessel geometry. We find that the two methods result in significantly different stress predictions, and that the iterative method offers superior geometric accuracy. Our findings lend context to the variation in finite element results presented in the AAA stress analysis literature.
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Leach et al. (2018) studied Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs). Iterative determination of unloaded vessel geometry vs. Geometric scaling method was evaluated on Stress predictions and geometric accuracy. The iterative method for estimating the unloaded state of abdominal aortic aneurysms offered superior geometric accuracy and resulted in significantly different stress predictions compared to geometric scaling.
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