Abstract
BackgroundThis paper presents quantitative analysis of blood flow shear stress by measuring the carotid arterial wall shear stress (WSS) and the intima-media thickness (IMT) of experimental rabbits fed with high-fat feedstuff on a weekly basis in order to cause atherosclerosis.MethodsThis study is based on establishing an atherosclerosis model of high-fat rabbits, and measuring the rabbits’ common carotid arterial WSS of the experimental group and control group on a weekly basis. Detailed analysis was performed by using WSS quantification.ResultsWe have demonstrated small significant difference of rabbit carotid artery WSS between the experimental group and the control group (P<0.01) from the 1st week onwards, while the IMT of experimental group had larger differences from 5th week compared with the control group (P<0.05). Next, we have shown that with increasing blood lipids, the rabbit carotid artery shear stress decreases and the rabbit carotid artery IMT goes up. The decrease of shear stress appears before the start of IMT growth. Furthermore, our receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that when the mean value of shear stress is 1.198 dyne/cm2, the rabbit common carotid atherosclerosis fatty streaks sensitivity is 89.8%, and the specificity is 81.3%. The area under the ROC curve is 0.9283.ConclusionsAll these data goes to show that WSS decreasing to 1.198 dyne/cm2 can be used as an indicator that rabbit common carotid artery comes into the period of fibrous plaques. In conclusion, our study is able to find and confirm that the decrease of the arterial WSS can predict the occurrence of atherosclerosis earlier, and offer help for positive clinical intervention.
Highlights
This paper presents quantitative analysis of blood flow shear stress by measuring the carotid arterial wall shear stress (WSS) and the intima-media thickness (IMT) of experimental rabbits fed with high-fat feedstuff on a weekly basis in order to cause atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis refers to the clinical precancerous lesion of atherosclerosis (Preclinical Atherosclerosis, PCA), which means that the patients has evidence of atherosclerosis, but there are no specific clinical symptoms of atherosclerotic stenosis caused by arterial atherosclerosis [4]
Histopathologic examination Rabbit carotid artery histology of the control group Based on observation, the structures of arterial intima, tunica media and tunica externa are complete
Summary
This paper presents quantitative analysis of blood flow shear stress by measuring the carotid arterial wall shear stress (WSS) and the intima-media thickness (IMT) of experimental rabbits fed with high-fat feedstuff on a weekly basis in order to cause atherosclerosis. Epidemiological investigations have shown that cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are the major lethal factors affecting people around the world. In 2008, the national monitoring data from The National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Zhang et al BioMed Eng OnLine (2017) 16:137 showed that cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases mortality in China is 229/100 thousands [1], and atherosclerosis is a big cause of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. The formation of atherosclerosis is a long and complicated process. Pathology shows that atherosclerosis is generally divided into four periods: (1) fatty streaks, (2) fibrous plaque, (3) atheromatous plaque, and (4) complicated lesions or secondary changes [3]. Atherosclerosis refers to the clinical precancerous lesion of atherosclerosis (Preclinical Atherosclerosis, PCA), which means that the patients has evidence of atherosclerosis, but there are no specific clinical symptoms of atherosclerotic stenosis caused by arterial atherosclerosis [4]
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