ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Collateral circulatory pathways are considered the primary determinant of cerebral hemodynamics in patients with obstructive lesions of the internal carotid arteries (ICaAs). However, the hemodynamic effects of the diameter of the anterior communicating artery (ACoA) have never been assessed quantitatively in humans. METHODS AND RESULTS: Two different mathematical models were used to simulate changes affecting blood pressures and flows in cerebral arteries as a function of ACoA diameter and ICaA stenoses or occlusions. Small changes in ACoA diameter were found to have marked hemodynamic effects when they occurred within the range of 0.4 to 1.6 mm, a situation observed in 80% of the cases. Outside this range, changes in ACoA diameter had no effect. Simulated pressure drops through a stenotic ICaA were consistent with those observed. They were found to depend on the degrees of the stenoses in both ICaAs and on ACoA diameter according to a simple equation. Pressure reserve in the middle and anterior cerebral arteries decreased to below the lower limit of autoregulation, despite a normal mean arterial blood pressure, when the arteries were distal to a unique 70% ICaA stenosis associated with a small-diameter ACoA or to a 50% ICaA stenosis associated with a contralateral ICaA occlusion and a large-diameter ACoA. Above these thresholds, the circle of Willis allowed for an almost complete global cerebral blood flow compensation that involved all the afferent and communicating vessels. CONCLUSIONS: ACoA diameter strongly modulates the effects of ICaA lesions on cerebral hemodynamics. Some proposals for endarterectomy indications can be derived from our study.
