A haemodynamic predictor of intraluminal thrombus formation in abdominal aortic aneurysms

Intraluminal thrombus (ILT) is present in over 75% of all abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) and probably contributes to the complex biomechanics and pathobiology of these lesions. A reliable predictor of thrombus formation in enlarging lesions could thereby aid clinicians in treatment planning. The primary goal of this work was to identify a new phenomenological metric having clinical utility that is motivated by the hypothesis that two basic haemodynamic features must coincide spatially and temporally to promote the formation of a thrombus on an intact endothelium—platelets must be activated within a shear flow and then be presented to a susceptible endothelium. Towards this end, we propose a new thrombus formation potential (TFP) that combines information on the flow-induced shear history experienced by blood-borne particles that come in close proximity to the endothelium with information on both the time-averaged wall shear stress (WSS) and the oscillatory shear index (OSI) that locally affect the endothelial mechanobiology. To illustrate the possible utility of this new metric, we show computational results for 10 carotid arteries from five patients where regions of low WSS and high OSI tend not to be presented with activated platelets (i.e. they have a low TFP), consistent with the thrombo-resistance of the healthy carotid despite its complex haemodynamics. Conversely, we show results for three patients that high TFP co-localizes with regions of observed thin thrombus in AAAs, which contrasts with findings of low TFP for the abdominal aorta of three healthy subjects. We submit that these promising results suggest the need for further consideration of the TFP, or a similar combined metric, as a potentially useful clinical predictor of the possible formation of ILT in AAAs.