ACME 2011 Proceedings of the 19 UK National Conference of the ...

4 CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions were derived from the current work:
• Inverse parameter optimization seems to be a feasible technique for material-parameter
estimation of human arteries.
• Non-invasive procedures can be employed for determining the arterial material properties.
• A high degree of agreement was observed between the experimental and model predicted
values obtained from the Levenberg-Marquardt optimization routine and the error in
most cases was found to be less than 1%.
• This study provides the motivation to implement non-invasive and patient-specific arterial
material property estimation in multi-dimensions (up to 4D).
Currently, most CFD studies on blood flow simulations rely on an assumed value of elasticity
for the arterial walls. Hence, the primary accomplishment of this work was to illustrate the
possibility of having a well-defined model for non-invasively extracting the properties of human
arteries via inverse optimization.
It is aimed to work towards the development of a new and advanced methodology that could
act as a substitute to the current risk assessment and diagnostic procedures being implemented
in health care. The evaluation of arterial stiffness can therefore be used as a marker to predict
the onset of such disease states (CVD) at a very early stage and could assist in decreasing
cardiovascular mortality and increasing life expectancy. With a broader sense, blood vessel
elasticity is also important to physiology, clinical problems involving surgery, angioplasty, tissue
remodelling, tissue engineering, hypertonology, nephrology, neurology, gynaecology and
diabetology.
5 Acknowledgement
The Zienkiewicz Fellowship that made this project possible is highly regarded and acknowledged.
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