The Measurement Of Biomechanical Properties Of Carotid Artery And Carotid Artery Atherosclerotic Plaque

With the rapid development of the society, the number of motor vehicles aswell as the number of accidents caused by those vehicles are showing a risingtrend, causing the society tremendous losses. Maxillofacial, as one of the moreprominent parts of the body, is faced with an increasing risk of being traumatizedin a car accident. Currently the global medical community has agreed that aninstant reverse impact acceleration is the most important mechanics factor causingmaxillofacial injuries and adjacent organ damage[1]. However, studies of theimpact from the acceleration on the blood vessels are not so many, among which,instant acceleration of the collision could cause blunt trauma (blunt carotid injury,BCI) of the carotid artery is one example. We found a strange phenomenon in thetreatment of accident victims that not only has a considerable proportion ofpatients who got intracranial hematoma, but they have also got accompaniedsymptoms such as acute cerebral artery infarction and other cerebrovasculardiseases.Combining with the existing cerebral infarction mechanism theory, and thespecial clinical phenomena described above, our group initially proposed analternative hypothesis that could lead to cerebral infarction in such cases, as theinstant reverse impact acceleration from a car collision which causes thehemodynamic change of the carotid artery, leading to detachment of theatherosclerotic plaque.With the flowing of blood,the plague blocks thedownstream small arteries, finally leading to cerebral ischemic lesions.We explored and calculated the modulus elasticity of atherosclerotic plaqueswith different nature that lays a foundation for future carotid atherosclerosisresearches. Also, we researched the relationship between collagen content of carotid plate with Young’s modulus, and investigated the effect of composition onthe plate elastic modulus. We attempted to detect modulus elasticity byindentation experiment. Through the build of three-dimensional finite elementmodel under the fluid-solid coupling effect of the existing atherosclerotic carotidartery, and the introduction of the reverse impact acceleration, the impact of acertain size reverse impact acceleration to carotid artery hemodynamic could becalculated.In this study, we used a tensile test and the indentation exploring experimentto measure the elasticity modulus of carotid artery and carotid arteryatherosclerotic plaques. The elasticity modulus in plaques we got from the tensiletest are mostly consistent with those we referred to in literature, but the specimensfrom carotid endarterectomy in our experiment are relatively few, which not fullydemonstrate the statistically significant difference between different parts of theplaque. In addition, age, gender differences were also not included. Moreover,there is certain limitation in the clinical specimens obtained, so there will be someunavoidable errors. Besides, the experiment was cinducted in vitro conditions,also resulting in some errors from ultrasound measurements. Due to anunavailability of professional and systematical data processing support in theindentation experiments, we were unable to obtain results in satisfactory whichturns out to be the focus of our future research.With the increase in vehicle population, as a result, the number of caraccidents and any other collisions which cause patients with severe ischemic brainlesions is rapidly increasing, consequently leaving immeasurable losses on theindividual patient, their families, and even the society. We have proposed ascientific hypothesis that is bold and innovative. If confirmed by realimplementation of this project, possible mechanism could be revealed as theinstant reverse impact acceleration upon collision which leads to the rupture anddetachment of the carotid atherosclerotic plaque, which is of crucial economic andsocial significance.