title: New interpretation of arterial stiffening due to cigarette smoking using a structurally motivated constitutive model.
abstract: Cigarette smoking is the leading self-inflicted risk factor for cardiovascular diseases; it causes arterial stiffening with serious sequelea including atherosclerosis and abdominal aortic aneurysms. This work presents a new interpretation of arterial stiffening caused by smoking based on data published for rat pulmonary arteries. A structurally motivated "four fiber family" constitutive relation was used to fit the available biaxial data and associated best-fit values of material parameters were estimated using multivariate nonlinear regression. Results suggested that arterial stiffening caused by smoking was reflected by consistent increase in an elastin-associated parameter and moreover by marked increase in the collagen-associated parameters. That is, we suggest that arterial stiffening due to cigarette smoking appears to be isotropic, which may allow simpler phenomenological models to capture these effects using a single stiffening parameter similar to the approach in isotropic continuum damage mechanics. There is a pressing need, however, for more detailed histological information coupled with more complete biaxial mechanical data for a broader range of systemic arteries.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Oersteds Plads, Building 349, DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark. mse@elektro.dtu.dk
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Enevoldsen
authors.forename: K-A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Henneberg
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lönn
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Humphrey
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017544:Aortic Aneurysm, Abdominal / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D001158:Arteries / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D050197:Atherosclerosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D003094:Collagen / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*
chemical_list: D003094:Collagen