Authors: Aksel Anderson, Lindsay Rupp, Anna Busatto, Rob MacLeod
Mentors: Rob MacLeod
Insitution: University of Utah
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally, and one of the most impactful subsets is coronary artery disease (CAD). CAD occurs when an obstruction(s) in the arteries fails to supply the heart with sufficient blood flow, ultimately resulting in tissue death. Understanding the geometric structure of the heart’s vasculature can provide insight into the development of CAD. However, previous research has only captured vasculature geometries for the main coronary branches, neglecting the downstream vasculature. Therefore, capturing the downstream vasculature would offer researchers a more comprehensive model to study CAD. Our study developed a method to efficiently obtain subject-specific, comprehensive vasculature geometries. First, we obtained five computed tomography (CT) scans of explanted porcine hearts with the coronaries highlighted via a contrast agent. From these CT images, we developed a novel method to efficiently capture the vasculature geometry of each subject. Once we obtained the final geometries, we computed two metrics to determine the extent of the captured vasculature: (1) the number of vessel segments and (2) the smallest vessel radius. We obtained an average vessel segment count of approximately 169 +/- 63 vessels and a smallest vessel radius of approximately 0.44 +/- 0.15 mm. We were able to successfully capture vessels over 85% smaller than the largest porcine coronary artery with a radius of approximately 3.5 mm. Our methodology will help researchers and clinicians obtain comprehensive vascular geometries to enhance the study and treatment of CAD.