Intimal thickness is not associated with wall shear stress patterns in the human right coronary artery

Objective - Low wall shear stress has been implicated in atherogenesis throughout the arterial tree, including the right coronary artery (RCA). The objective of this study was to determine the level of covariation of intimal thickness and wall shear stress in the human RCA. Methods and Results - Postmortem histological measurements of intimal thickness were compared with wall shear stresses calculated from computational flow modeling in 4 human right coronary arteries. A statistically significant correlation between intimal thickness and wall shear stress was found in only 1 of the 4 arteries studied. Conclusion - Wall shear stress does not appear to be related to intimal thickness in the 4 RCAs studied.