Short-time existence of a quasi-stationary fluid–structure interaction problem for plaque growth

Abstract We address a quasi-stationary fluid–structure interaction problem coupled with cell reactions and growth, which comes from the plaque formation during the stage of the atherosclerotic lesion in human arteries. The blood is modeled by the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation, while the motion of vessels is captured by a quasi-stationary equation of nonlinear elasticity. The growth happens when both cells in fluid and solid react, diffuse and transport across the interface, resulting in the accumulation of foam cells, which are exactly seen as the plaques. Via a fixed-point argument, we derive the local well-posedness of the nonlinear system, which is sustained by the analysis of decoupled linear systems.