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An Integrated Statistical Investigation of Internal Carotid Arteries of Patients Affected by Cerebral Aneurysms

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Abstract

Cerebral aneurysm formation is the result of a complex interplay of systemic and local factors. Among the latter, the role of the geometry of the vessel hosting an aneurysm, of the upstream vasculature and the induced hemodynamics still need to be carefully investigated. In this paper we combine computational fluid dynamics analysis and morphological characterization and carry out the statistical investigation of the features of the internal carotid artery (ICA) of 52 patients affected by a cerebral aneurysm. The functional principal component analysis performed on the geometric and fluid dynamics features of the patients reveals correlations with the location of the aneurysm in the cerebral circulation and its rupture status. This allows a clustering of the patients that is anticipated to contribute to the design of an index for the rupture risk. In particular, ICA featuring a pronounced WSS peak are statistically inclined to hosting ruptured aneurysms. Moreover, our statistical results suggest that patients with a double-bend siphons (S-class) are less prone to the development of cerebral aneurysms.

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Acknowledgments

Laura Sangalli is partially supported by the Italian MIUR FIRB research project “Advanced statistical and numerical methods for the analysis of high dimensional functional data in life sciences and engineering”. Marina Piccinelli, Tiziano Passerini and Alessandro Veneziani acknowledge the support of the Brain Aneurysm Foundation. All the participants acknowledge the support of the Italian Fondazione Politecnico di Milano and the SIEMENS Medical Solutions, Italy for the support to the Aneurisk project (Partners of Aneurisk: MOX—Department of Mathematics, Politecnico di Milano (PI institution), M. Negri Institute, Bergamo, Department of Neurosurgery, Niguarda Ca’Granda Hospital, Milan, Department of Neurosciences, University of Milan, LABS—Department of Civil Engineering, Politecnico di Milano). Alessandro Veneziani wishes to thank Dr. Frank Tong (Emory Hospital) for fruitful discussions. Susanna Bacigaluppi dedicates her contribution to this work to the memory of Dr. M. Collice.

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

All the authors of the present paper declare that they do not have any conflict of interest with the results of the research presented here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Tiziano Passerini, Marina Piccinelli & Alessandro Veneziani

  2. MOX, Modeling and Scientific Computing, Department of Mathematics, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Laura M. Sangalli, Simone Vantini & Piercesare Secchi

  3. Department of Neurosurgery, Niguarda Ca’Granda Hospital, Milan, Italy

    Susanna Bacigaluppi

  4. Department of Neurosciences and Biomedical Technologies, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza, Italy

    Susanna Bacigaluppi

  5. Orobix, Bergamo, Italy

    Luca Antiga

  6. Department of Neuroradiology, Niguarda Ca’Granda Hospital, Milan, Italy

    Edoardo Boccardi

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  1. Tiziano Passerini
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Correspondence to Alessandro Veneziani.

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Communicated by Yi-Ren Woo.

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Passerini, T., Sangalli, L.M., Vantini, S. et al. An Integrated Statistical Investigation of Internal Carotid Arteries of Patients Affected by Cerebral Aneurysms. Cardiovasc Eng Tech 3, 26–40 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13239-011-0079-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13239-011-0079-x

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