Morphological Features of Intraluminal Thrombus Drive Vessel Wall Stress and Oxygen Flow

The intraluminal thrombus (ILT) plays a key chemo-mechanical role in the evolution of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA), which is still not fully understood. While it has been shown that ILTs may reduce the aneurysmal wall stress by acting as a mechanical buffer, they also limit oxygen transport to the AAA wall, which may cause aortic wall degeneration. The objective of this talk is to investigate how key morphological features of ILT affect the transport of oxygen to the aortic wall as well as tissue’s deformation, and therefore provide a greater understanding of the potential ILT contribution to AAA rupture. With the use of advanced simulations of coupled fluid-poroelastic structure interaction and mass transport in patient-specific geometries of AAA, a physiologically realistic approach to simulate aortic wall stress and oxygen flow in–vivo is presented. Using this computational framework, the association between mechanical stresses and oxygen starvation in the wall in different geometries of aneurysms with varying ILT shapes and thicknesses is explored. The results provide valuable insight into the salient behavior of thrombi under flow in compliant arteries, as well as the effects of thrombi on blood flow, wall deformation, peak wall stresses within AAA, and local hypoxia.