A mathematical model of the atherosclerosis development in thin blood vessels and its asymptotic approximation

Some existing models of the atherosclerosis development are discussed and a new improved mathematical model, which takes into account new experimental results about diverse roles of macrophages in atherosclerosis, is proposed. Using technic of upper and lower solutions, the existence and uniqueness of its positive solution are justified. After the nondimensionalisation, small parameters are found. Then asymptotic approximation for the solution is constructed and justified with the help of asymptotic methods for boundary-value problems in thin domains. The results argue for the possibility to replace the complex $3D$ (dimensional) mathematical model with the corresponding simpler $2D$ model with sufficient accuracy measured by these small parameters.