Evaluating the effect of morphology on cerebral aneurysm hemodynamics

The morphology of intracranial aneurysms (IA) is known to affect the hemodynamics and risk of growth and progression of the IA. Prior studies have shown that the shape-based factors of aspect ratio, diameter, and ellipticity index are highly correlated with IA rupture. This study aims to evaluate the sensitivity of hemodynamic parameters to changes in IA morphology. We established cases with varying aneurysm morphologies, adopting geometries from patient-specific models. These aneurysms were evaluated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to analyze relevant hemodynamic parameters, including pressure and wall shear stress (WSS). The CFD results were compared with existing particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) data for validation. This analysis assesses the sensitivity of key hemodynamic parameters—such as wall shear stress, oscillatory shear index, etc.—to IA morphology, providing detailed insights into the hemodynamics of differently shaped IAs and establishing a baseline for diagnosing and predicting IA rupture risk based on morphology.