Oxygen transfer in human carotid artery bifurcation

Arterial bifurcations are places where blood flow may be disturbed and slow recirculation flow may occur. To reveal the correlation between local oxygen transfer and atherogenesis, a finite element method was employed to simulate the blood flow and the oxygen transfer in the human carotid artery bifurcation. Under steady-state flow conditions, the numerical simulation demonstrated a variation in local oxygen transfer at the bifurcation, showing that the convective condition in the disturbed flow region may produce uneven local oxygen transfer at the blood/wall interface. The disturbed blood flow with formation of slow eddies in the carotid sinus resulted in a depression in oxygen supply to the arterial wall at the entry of the sinus, which in turn may lead to an atherogenic response of the arterial wall, and contribute to the development of atherosclerotic stenosis there. The project supported by the National Natural Science Research Council of China (10632010, 10572017, 30670517).