Wall-to-Lumen Ratio Estimation from Excised Ascending Aortic Aneurysm Rings

Abstract

Mechanical equilibrium and homeostasis of the vessel wall are dependent on its wall-to-lumen ratio. Ex vivo studies performing wall thickness measurements do not perform measurements on intact rings. Therefore, they lack ex vivo lumen radius, which is necessary to determine the wall-to-lumen ratio. Therefore, in this study we propose an ex vivo wall-to-lumen ratio measurement technique. Our measurements were performed on excised ascending aortic aneurysm rings. We assessed the reliability of our measurement technique through Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility (GRR) analysis, considering both inter- and intra-observer variations. For the samples collected from patient group undergoing ascending aortic repair surgery, our estimates indicate a wall-to-lumen ratio on the order of 0.2, with a GRR coefficient of variation of less than 10%.