Is wall shear stress ready to become a prime-time clinical tool?—measurement of post-surgical patterns in patients undergoing aortic valve and thoracic aortic replacement using 4-dimensional flow magnetic resonance imaging

There is a significant need for new predictors of progressive dilation and dissection in aortic aneurysmal diseases, since the current paradigm of relying on aortic diameter is limited. Wall shear stress (WSS) is a known key pathological driver of aortic pathology and having insight into the post-operative changes in WSS is an important step toward meeting this need for more pathologically relevant metrics of risk (1).