Validation of Cerebral Blood Flow in Intracranial Aneurysms: CFD Versus 7 Tesla 4D PC-MRI

The number of numerical studies predicting blood flow in intracranial aneurysms is rapidly increasing over the last years. Due to a high spatial as well as temporal resolution, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approaches offer a high potential to investigate flow interaction within the human vascular system. However, state-of-the-art methods still underlie several assumptions, e.g., rigid vessel walls, analytical boundary conditions or the consideration of blood as a single-phase continuous fluid. In consequence, the acceptance of CFD is still limited among a majority of physicians [1]. In order to overcome these reasonable doubts, simulations need to be validated via experiments. Therefore, two patient-specific intracranial aneurysms were measured by means of 7-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Afterwards, highly resolved numerical simulations were carried out and the peak-systolic velocity fields compared in a qualitative manner.