fastAAA

Italian SuperComputing Resource Allocation – CINECA, ISCRA C

Aortic Aneurysm is a potentially life threatening cardiovascular disease associated with the enlargement and weakening of the aortic wall. From the clinical point of view, in general, the questions that need an answer are: “under which conditions the rupture of such an aneurysm is most likely ?” (Fillinger et al. 2002; Munarriz et al. 2016), and “at which stage of development surgical intervention is reasonable?”. Among the biomarkers proposed in literature, all investigations agree that the wall shear stress (WSS) plays a critical role. Personalized blood flow simulations offer the ability to predict the effects of several hemodynamic parameters, allowing patient-specific treatment plans that account for future risk. In this context, image-based computational fluid dynamics holds a prominent position in the evaluation of aneurysms, especially as a promising tool to stratify rupture risk due to its capability to calculate and to cope with the WSS. Associated to WSS, additional parameters can be computed. Among these, time-averaged WSS (TAWSS) and oscillatory shear index OSI are the most frequently investigated. Although TAWSS and OSI are not used as a diagnostic measurement yet, evidence has shown that locations of abnormal TAWSS and OSI correlate with alteration of the biological tissue.