Characterization of Carotid Artery Flow

描述(申请人提供)：颈动脉血管成形术是一种快速发展的颈动脉狭窄的血管内治疗方法，倡导者预测它将取代外科动脉内膜切除术。血管成形术后的血流动力学变化(无论流动是简单的还是层流的，还是变成具有不平凡的频率和再循环区域的三维复杂流动)都没有得到很好的描述。血流特征可以预测颈动脉内膜切除术或血管成形术后的疾病结局和治疗效果。因此，我们认为，根据血流的层流或复杂性质来表征血流将提供一种更有效的手段来预测组织学水平上的动脉变化以及再狭窄和卒中风险的差异。MRI提供了一种非侵入性和无辐射的方法来获得准确的动脉信息，使其成为在实验和临床环境中研究动脉血流的理想方法。最终，这项技术可以在临床环境中进行研究，以研究血管成形术或动脉内膜切除术前后人类颈动脉的血流特征，并用于预测个别患者的治疗结果。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Carotid angioplasty is a rapidly evolving endovascular treatment for carotid stenosis, and advocates predict that is will replace surgical endarterectomy. The hemodynamic changes following angioplasty (whether the flow remains simple or laminar, or becomes a three-dimensional complicated flow with a non-trivial spectrum of frequencies and regions of recirculation) are not well described. Flow characteristics may prove to be predictive of disease outcome and treatment efficacy after carotid endarterectomy or angioplasty. Therefore, we propose that characterizing flow according to its laminar or complicated properties will provide a more effective means to predict arterial changes seen at the histological level and differences in restenosis and stroke risk. MRI provides a non-invasive and radiation-free method of obtaining accurate arterial information, making it an ideal modality to study arterial flow in both an experimental and clinical setting. Ultimately this technique can be investigated in a clinical setting to study flow characteristics in the human carotid artery before and after angioplasty or endarterectomy, and used to predict treatment outcome on an individual patient basis.