Image-based Blood Flow Analysis of Popliteal Artery Aneurysms – an Interdisciplinary Pilot Study

Abstract Although popliteal artery aneurysms (PAAs) are the most frequent aneurysms in the lower peripheral arteries, research has not covered the potential of blood flow analysis of these pathologies yet. We therefore present a pilot study for the image-based hemodynamic evaluation of patient-specific PAAs. To ensure a large vascular domain with similar boundary conditions, we combine a vascular tree from a healthy proband with six patient-specific vessel models and corresponding segmentations of thrombi. The patients exhibit different severities of the disease ranging from partly blocked to totally blocked lower arteries. Our pilot study demonstrates that the precise assessment of individual thrombus formation and associated local hemodynamics is feasible. In consequence, image-based blood flow analysis might reveal important insight in PAA interaction with thrombus growth and remaining blood supply of the lower limbs