title: Association of endothelial shear stress with plaque thickness in a real three-dimensional left main coronary artery bifurcation model.
abstract: We report for the first time a real three-dimensional reconstruction of the left main coronary artery, left main bifurcation, left anterior descending coronary artery and left circumflex coronary artery using biplane angiography and intravascular ultrasound imaging in a patient with a proximal stenosis in the left anterior descending coronary artery. By using computational fluid dynamics in the three-dimensional luminal model we computed endothelial shear stress, while plaque thickness was calculated as the difference between the three-dimensional lumen and outer vessel wall; plaque thickness was found to be inversely related to endothelial shear stress in the left main coronary artery and bifurcation. The application of our methodology for real three-dimensional reconstruction of the left main coronary artery and bifurcation is useful for investigating the relationship of hemodynamic parameters with plaque thickness in this critical coronary region.
authors.forename: Michail I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Papafaklis
authors.forename: Christos V
authors.initials: CV
authors.lastname: Bourantas
authors.forename: Panagiotis E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Theodorakis
authors.forename: Christos S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Katsouras
authors.forename: Dimitrios I
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Fotiadis
authors.forename: Lampros K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Michalis
mesh_terms: D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013314:Stress, Mechanical