Blood Flow Simulation in a Giant Intracranial Aneurysm and Its Validation by Digital Subtraction Angiography

In this study we simulate the blood flow in a giant aneurysm using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques and validate the results using the 2D X-ray image sequence generated from digital subtraction angiography (DSA). The 3D geometry of the aneurysm was retrieved from a computed tomography angiography (CTA) image. The pulsatile blood flow was numerically solved, and the hemodynamic quantities such as the wall shear stress (WSS) and flow velocity field were analyzed at four instants of a cardiac cycle. The computed intra-aneurysm flow velocity was validated using a DSA sequence over several time frames. The time-averaged flow velocity (∼ 0.2 m/s) agreed with the flow velocity estimated from the DSA. We further compared the Newtonian blood model with a non-Newtonian (Carreau) model and found that the Newtonian model overestimated the flow velocity and WSS.