In vitro angioplasty of atherosclerotic human femoral arteries: analysis of the geometrical changes in the individual tissues using MRI and image processing.

Existing atherosclerotic plaque imaging techniques such as intravascular ultrasound, multidetector computed tomography, optical coherence tomography, and high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (hrMRI) require computerized methods to separate and analyze the plaque morphology. In this work, we perform in vitro balloon angioplasty experiments with 10 human femoral arteries using hrMRI and image processing. The vessel segments contain low-grade to high-grade lesions with very different plaque compositions. The experiments are designed to mimic the in vivo situation. We use a semi-automatic image processing tool to extract the three-dimensional (3D) geometries of the tissue components at four characteristic stages of the angioplasty procedure. The obtained geometries are then used to determine geometrical and mechanical indices in order to characterize, classify, and analyze the atherosclerotic plaques by their specific geometrical changes. During inflation, three vessels ruptured via helical crack propagation. The adventitia, media, and intima did not preserve their area/volume during inflation; the area changes of the lipid pool during inflation were significant. The characterization of changes in individual 3D tissue geometries, together with tissue-specific mechanical properties, may serve as a basis for refined finite element (FE) modeling, which is key to better understand stress evolution in various atherosclerotic plaque configurations.