Fluid Dynamics in Normal and Stenosed Human Renal Arteries: an Experimental and Computational Study

Atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis (RAS), which accounts for approximately 7% of peripheral vascular diseases, is considered a major cause for secondary hypertension and other renal complications such as chronic renal failure and ischemic nephropathy. In this study, the fluid dynamic features of a human aortorenal bifurcation are investigated in detail with a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver to assess the localization of RAS in relation to the sites exposed to abnormal hemodynamic events. Specially, a normal renal artery is artificially rendered stenosed to examine the RAS-induced hemodynamic changes and their effect on the progression of RAS. The CFD solver is partially validated by a model experiment conducted for steady state flow. The computed results indicate that low oscillatory wall shear stress (WSS), which stands for the most prominent hemodynamic factor responsible for atherosclerosis, correlates intimately with flow separation; WSS distribution depends significantly on vascular geometric structure; and RAS may elicit pronounced flow disturbances that are likely to promote the spread of atherosclerotic lesions towards downstream region.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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