Artery Research

Volume 12, Issue C, December 2015, Pages 21 - 21

P5.5 COMPENSATORY EFFECT BETWEEN AORTIC STIFFENING AND REMODELLING DURING AGEING

Authors
Andrea Guala*, Carlo Camporeale, Luca Ridolfi
Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
Available Online 23 November 2015.
DOI
10.1016/j.artres.2015.10.270How to use a DOI?
Abstract

The arterial tree exhibits a complex spatio-temporal wave pattern, whose healthy behaviour depends on a balance between mechanical and geometrical properties. Several clinical studies demonstrated that this balance progressively breaks down during ageing, when the aorta stiffens and remodels. This dual mechanism is investigated by a validated multi-scale model aiming to elucidate how aortic stiffening and remodelling quantitatively impact the waves pattern in the aorta.

The detrimental increase of maximum pressure and left-ventricular work during ageing is here shown to results from the impairment of fluid dynamic balance between generation-propagation of forward waves and reflections- damping of backward waves. Our quantitative outcomes confirm several clinical studies results. Our results shed light on how ageing-induced aortic stiffening and remodelling affect this balance: the former enhances first pressure pulse at ventricular-aortic interface during ejection, while the latter damps it; although stiffening tends to decrease reflection coefficients at bifurcations, their remodelling-induced growth prevails; aortic remodelling undermines the protective wave-trapping mechanism while stiffening enhances it; aortic stiffening reduces pulse pressure amplification while remodelling augments it; by contrast, both stiffening and remodelling contribute to limit the growth of left-ventricle work with age.

These results suggest that an excessive imbalance between aortic stiffness and geometric remodelling during clinical treatment of elderly subjects should be avoided. Our results show how a dramatic reduction of the pulse wave velocity in a dilated aorta can lead to an increase of pulse pressure amplification, with potential detrimental effects on organs such as the kidneys.

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Journal
Artery Research
Volume-Issue
12 - C
Pages
21 - 21
Publication Date
2015/11/23
ISSN (Online)
1876-4401
ISSN (Print)
1872-9312
DOI
10.1016/j.artres.2015.10.270How to use a DOI?
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license.

Cite this article

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Andrea Guala*
AU  - Carlo Camporeale
AU  - Luca Ridolfi
PY  - 2015
DA  - 2015/11/23
TI  - P5.5 COMPENSATORY EFFECT BETWEEN AORTIC STIFFENING AND REMODELLING DURING AGEING
JO  - Artery Research
SP  - 21
EP  - 21
VL  - 12
IS  - C
SN  - 1876-4401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artres.2015.10.270
DO  - 10.1016/j.artres.2015.10.270
ID  - Guala*2015
ER  -