Discrimination of Vessel Wall Components of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms by Multi-Contrast MRI

Rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a major cause of death in the Western world. When the AAA is diagnosed timely, rupture can be prevented by conventional surgical or by endovascular repair. To date, the decision to operate is based on geometry alone, but it has already been suggested that wall stress would be a better predictor [2]. Patient specific computational models have been developed to calculate wall stress [2; 5; 9; 8; 10]. In these models, the AAA wall is assumed to be homogeneous. Patient-specific inhomogeneities such as atherosclerotic plaques and calcifications have large effects on the maximum wall stress and wall stress distribution [6; 7]. Histological examination is not feasible for determining wall composition of patients.