Guillermo Vilalta-Alonso
Departamento de Ciencias Termicas e dos Fluidos/UFSJ
Title: Abdominal aortic aneurysm rupture risk prediction, an open challenge for vascular surgeons
Biography
Biography: Guillermo Vilalta-Alonso
Abstract
Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) rupture is one of the main causes of death in the world. Nowadays, there is consensus that current criteria to assess the aneurysm rupture risk (maximum transverse diameter and growth rate) cannot be considered as reliable indicators. Hence, the clinical management of aneurysmatic patients faces the challenge of identifying if other indices could be used as rupture predictors. Recently, rupture predictor indices have been proposed among they asymmetry, effect of intraluminal thrombus, wall stiffness and thickness saccular index, mechanical stress. Some of these indices have been more successful than others due to the difficulty for extracting in-vivo and non-invasive information, difficulting its implementation in daily clinical management. To overcome this limitation and considering the influence of the AAA morphology on aneurysm rupture potential, some size and shape geometric indices, based on lumen centerline, have been proposed and have been correlated with the hemodynamic stresses, as an indicator of the rupture risk. The main advantage of the geometric indices is that they can be determined, in easy way, from computed tomography. The objective of this study is to discuss the basics of this approach and how it can help to gain physical insight based on quantitative results. The results up to now obtained show that statistical techniques could be an appropriate method to determine potential correlations and that other indices like, asymmetry, deformation rate, AAA length, saccular index, are important and could also be readily incorporated into surgeon’s decision making.