PREDICTION FOR ABDOMINAL AORTIC ANEURYSM RUPTUR RISK. METHOD BASED ON GEOMETRIC BIODETERMINANTS

Abstract

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) rupture is one of the main causes of death in the world. This is a very complex phenomenon that usually occurs "without previous warning". Currently, criteria to assess the aneurysm rupture risk (peak diameter and growth rate) cannot be considered as reliable indicators. In order to improve the predicting of AAA rupture risk, in this work it is presented the theoretical foundation of a simple method, where the main geometric parameters of aneurysms have been linked into six biomechanical factors, which have been combined to obtain a dimensionless rupture risk index, RI(t). It is expected that this indicator to be easy to understand, to be able to identify the aneurysm ruptures even when its peak diameter is less than the threshold value and identify those cases where the rupture should not occur and according to the maximum diameter criterion, the patient is submitted to surgical procedure. Also, are presented the initial results of the validation tests, which were designed using different strategies according to the data available by physicians. The results show that it is possible to perform the clinical assessment of the AAA rupture risk by means of its geometrical parameters.