Investigation of the T-cells effect to the prediction of the atherosclerotic plaque development in carotid arteries

The carotid artery disease is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide, as it leads to the progressive arterial stenosis that may result to stroke. To address this issue, the scientific community is attempting not only to enrich our knowledge on the underlying atherosclerotic mechanisms, but also to enable the prediction of the atherosclerotic progression. To this aim, this study investigates the role of T-cells in the atherosclerotic plaque growth process through the implementation of a computational model in realistic carotid arteries. In brief, T-cells mediate in the inflammatory process by secreting interferon-γ that enhances the activation of macrophages. In this analysis, we used 5 realistic human carotid arterial segments as input to the model. In particular, magnetic resonance imaging data, as well as, clinical data were collected from the patients at two time points. Using the baseline data, plaque growth was predicted and correlated to the follow-up arterial geometries. The results exhibited a very good agreement between them, presenting a high coefficient of determination, and thus of 0.64. The presented methodology enables the prediction of the inflammatory response during the atherosclerotic process, that can be used as an additional tool for patient-specific risk stratification