Purpose: Coronary artery geometry can have a significant impact in the hemodynamic behavior of coronary blood flow, influencing atherosclerotic plaque formation. The present work focuses on, through a statistical study, the connection between several geometric parameters of the right coronary artery-ostium cross-sectional area, angles between the common trunk and the side-branches, tortuosity, curvature and cross-sectional area in each side-branch-and their influence on hemodynamic descriptors. Parameters such as low wall shear stress and local disturbed flow, which are associated with atherosclerosis formation, were analysed.
Methods: Computed tomography images of ten healthy individuals were selected to reconstruct in vivo three-dimensional models of right coronary arteries. Blood flow was simulated through a compliant model with realistic boundary conditions. Calculated hemodynamic descriptors values were correlated with the geometric parameters using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r) and the p value.
Results: The strongest correlations were found in the middle and distal segments of the right coronary artery. A decrease in the ostium area promotes a decrease in the WSS magnitude from the proximal to the distal segment (r = 0.82). Very strong correlations (r > 0.90) were achieved between geometric parameters (cross-sectional area, angle, tortuosity) of the right-ventricular branch and the wall shear stress magnitude in the middle and distal segments.
Conclusions: Low values of tortuosity, smaller cross-sectional area and higher angle of the right-ventricular branch leads to a hemodynamic behavior more propitious to atherosclerosis formation, within the study cases. The right-ventricular branch seems to have the highest influence in the hemodynamic behavior of the right coronary artery.
Keywords: Atherosclerosis; Fluid–structure interaction; Geometric parameters; Right coronary artery; Statistics; Wall shear stress-based descriptors.