Coupled Modeling of Lipid Deposition, Inflammatory Response and Intraplaque Angiogenesis in Atherosclerotic Plaque

Studying the Factors of Human Carotid Atherosclerotic Plaque Rupture, by Calculating Stress/Strain in the Plaque, Based on CEUS Images: A Numerical Study

“…Another limitation is that this idealized geometry was two-dimensional. Previous studies have illustrated the histology image of the transversal slice of the plaque, indicating the distribution of microvasculature could either axial or transversal (Lu et al, 2015;Guo et al, 2018Guo et al, , 2019. These neovessels were with significant variation of the size of the neovessels.…”

“…These studies have taken into account the geometric and structural factors, including luminal stenotic degree, thin fibrous cap, large lipid core, and so on. Previous studies reported that the density of neovessels was positively associated with destabilization of the plaque based on the 2D transverse simulation (Lu et al, 2015;Guo et al, 2018Guo et al, , 2019. Teng et al (2012) established a 2D transverse CFD model based on carotid artery endarterectomy slices, and four carotid plaque samples were used to analyze the local mechanical environment of the neovessels.…”

A Prediction Tool for Plaque Progression Based on Patient-specific Multi-Physical Modeling

“…Based on our recently developed model [15,16], we modeled plaque microenvironment as a continuum medium that the cellular/acellular factors diffuse within the thickening intima as well as interact with each other. In particular, we considered four main pathophysiological processes during…”

“…Material. The explanation of the parameter setting and other details can be found in our previous work [15,16]. To avoid the pre-defined interventions as much as possible, we assumed that the interaction coefficients between the microenvironmental factors remain unchanged during plaque progression.…”

“…Intraplaque angiogenesis together with the associated intraplaque hemorrhage (IPH) contributes to the accumulation of inflammatory cells and lipoproteins through the leaky angiogenic microvessels, which are vital characteristics of atheroma microenvironment in vulnerable plaques [2,5] Besides the developments of novel imaging techniques, mathematical modeling and numerical simulation have been proven useful for quantitatively assessing the dynamic changes of cellular and acellular components involved in the plaque microenvironment and predicting plaque growth and possible rupture [13,14]. In our previous studies, we have developed a multi-physical mathematical model by coupling lipid deposition, inflammation, neovascularization and intraplaque hemorrhage, to investigate the pathophysiological responses of plaques to dynamic changes in the microenvironment [15,16]. For the first time, the promotion of intraplaque angiogenesis on the accumulation of ox-LDL and macrophages in the plaque lesion and its quantitative contribution to the induction and progression of plaque destabilization were demonstrated by using this multi-physical model.…”