Assessment of Complex Flow Patterns in Patients with Carotid Webs, Patients with Carotid Atherosclerosis, and Healthy Subjects Using 4D Flow MRI

Motivation: The motivation of this work is to understand the hemodynamics parameters in subjects with carotid web (CaW), atherosclerosis subjects with similar luminal narrowing, and normal subjects using 4D Flow MRI. Goal(s): The main goal of this work is to quantify parameters related to vascular dysfunction including wall shear stress (WSS) and oscillatory shear index (OSI). Approach: 4D Flow MRI was utilized to prospectively scan subjects with CaW and hemodynamic parameters were compared to subjects with mild atherosclerosis and healthy volunteers. Results: The results show that subjects with CaW have larger regions of complex blood flow represented by low WSS and high OSI. Impact: This study improves our understanding of disturbed hemodynamics caused by CaWs in comparison to atherosclerosis, which may explain the mechanism of thrombus formation and lay the groundwork for stroke risk assessment in patients with CaW.