Quantification of Arterial Stiffness Reduced Effect of Vessel Geometry

Arteriosclerosis is such as phenomena hardening of arteries, with thickening and loss of elasticity. Previous indexes include effect of geometric and mechanical factors as the radius, the wall thickness and mechanical properties of arteries. In this study, we proposed viscoelasticity indexes formulated by thin cylindrical shell theory estimated dynamic strain, and this index was independent of wall thickness and radius of arterial vessels. To confirm the validity of these indexes, we evaluated the parameters of viscoelasticity using the latex tube with different wall thickness of blood vessel model. We measured a radius of the latex tube and an inner pressure maintained by a pulsatile pump in a mock circuit filled with the water. Estimating the parameters of elasticity using these measured values, we concluded that a proposal index was independent of the wall thickness of the artery.