Wall Shear Rate Measurement: Validation of a New Method through Multi-Physics Simulations

Wall shear stress is known to affect the vessel endothelial function and to be related to important pathologies like the development of atherosclerosis. It is defined as the product of the blood viscosity by the blood velocity gradient at the wall position, i.e. the Wall Shear Rate (WSR). The WSR measurement is particularly challenging in important cardiovascular sites like the carotid bifurcation, because of the related complex flow configurations characterized by high spatial and temporal gradients, wall movement and clutter noise. Moreover, the accuracy of any method for WSR measurement can be effectively tested only if reliable gold standard WSR values, considering all of the aforementioned disturbing effects, are available. Unfortunately, these requirements are difficult to achieve in a physical phantom, so that the accuracy test of novel WSR measurement methods was so far limited to straight pipes and/or similar idealistic configurations. In this work, we propose a new method for WSR measurement and its validation based on a mathematical model of the carotid bifurcation, which, exploiting fluid-structure simulations, is capable of reproducing realistic flow configuration, wall movement, and clutter noise. In particular, the profile near the wall, not directly measurable because affected by clutter, is estimated through a power-law fitting and compared to the gold standard provided by the model. In this condition, the WSR measurements featured an accuracy of ±20%. A preliminary test on a volunteer confirmed the WSR method's feasibility for in-vivo application.