A quarter of a century biomechanical rupture risk assessment of abdominal aortic aneurysms. Achievements, clinical relevance, and ongoing developments

• Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) disease, the local enlargement of the infrarenal aorta, is a serious condition that causes many deaths, especially in men exceeding 65 years of age. Over the past quarter of a century, computational biomechanical models have been developed towards the assessment of AAA risk of rupture, technology that is now on the verge of being integrated within the clinical decision-making process. The modeling of AAA requires a holistic understanding of the clinical problem, in order to set appropriate modeling assumptions and to draw sound conclusions from the simulation results. In this article we summarize and critically discuss the proposed modeling approaches and report the outcome of clinical validation studies for a number of biomechanics-based rupture risk indices. Whilst most of the aspects concerning computational mechanics have already been settled, it is the exploration of the failure properties of the AAA wall and the acquisition of robust input data for simulations that has the greatest potential for the further improvement of this technology.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Kardiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Cardiac and Cardiovascular Systems (hsv//eng)

Keyword

abdominal aortic aneurysm

modeling

ruptuer risk assessment

vascular biomechanics

Biomechanics

Blood vessels

Computational mechanics

Decision making

Abdominal aortic aneurysms

Biomechanical model

Condition

Infrarenal aorta

International journals

Risks assessments

Rupture risk

Risk assessment

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)