A Review On the Effect of Temporal Geometric Variations of the Coronary Arteries On the Wall Shear Stress and Pressure Drop.

Abstract

Temporal variations of the coronary arteries during a cardiac cycle are defined as the superposition of the changes in the position, curvature, and torsion of the coronary artery axis markers and the variations in the lumen cross-sectional shape due to the distensible wall motion induced by the pulse pressure and contraction of the myocardium in a cardiac cycle. This review discusses whether the modelling the temporal variations of the coronary arteries is needed for the investigation of the hemodynamics specifically in time critical applications such as a clinical environment. The numerical modellings in the literature which model or disregard the temporal variations of the coronary arteries on the hemodynamic parameters are discussed. The results in the literature show that neglecting the effects of temporal geometric variations is expected to result in about 5\\% deviation of the time-averaged pressure drop and wall shear stress values and also about 20\\% deviation of the temporal variations of hemodynamic parameters, such as time-dependent wall shear stress and oscillatory shear index. This review study can be considered as a guide for the future studies to outline the conditions in which temporal variations of the coronary arteries can be neglected, while providing a reliable estimation of hemodynamic parameters.