Estimation of local arterial stiffness using non-invasive flow measurements: a study on a stenosed carotid artery

Abstract

Arterial stiffness is a well-established independent prognostic bio-marker in the human cardiovascular system (CVS). Despite its value as a predictive bio-marker, the inclusion of vascular stiffness into standard clinical procedures or guidelines is limited. This has come about as a result of the abundance of tools created to estimate and evaluate local arterial stiffness in people. This study employs a non-invasive technique to measure local arterial stiffness in the human carotid arteries using proximal flow measurements. Within this work, a viscoelastic lumped-parameter (0D) model of the carotid arteries is developed in complement with the non-invasive flow measurements obtained from the Doppler ultrasound. Further, concepts of sensitivity analysis and parameter estimation are applied to estimate arterial stiffness using the flow measurement taken at the common carotid artery (CCA). After the successful estimation of arterial stiffness in CCA, results show good agreement between model simulations and actual measurement.