Acoustics and Computational Models for Diagnosing Arterial Blockages

Arterial blockages can occur in small or large arteries for a variety of reasons, such as obesity, stress, smoking and high cholesterol. This paper presents a feasibility study on a novel method to detect the behaviour of the blood pressure wave propagation for arteries in both healthy and diseased conditions in order to develop a relatively inexpensive method for early detection of arterial disease. The trend of this behaviour is correlated to the early development of the arterial blockage at various locations. Invasive sets of data (gathered from experiments performed on animals) are implemented into a 3D Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model to determine how the arterial wall compliance changes when any abnormalities occur to the blood flow profile. At the same time, a 1D acoustical model is developed to transfer the information gathered (wave propagation for blood pressure, flow and arterial wall displacement) from the CFD model. Wave forms were collected at a location which was invasively accessible (the femoral artery). The computational and acoustical models are validated against the clinical trials and show good agreement. Any changes to the arterial wall displacement could be detected by systolic and diastolic blood pressure values at the femoral artery.