Optimization of a helical flow inducer of endovascular stent based on the principle of swirling flow in arterial system / 生物医学工程学杂志

ABSTRACT

The implantation of endovascular stents is currently one of the main treatments for cardiovascular occlusion diseases. However, the problem of arterial restenosis after implantation has not been completely solved. It has been well documented that the disturbed local blood flow and abnormal flow environment due to the deployment of the stent is one of the major causes of restenosis. Based on the principle of swirling flow in the arterial system, in this research, a spiral flow guider for endovascular stent was proposed to induce the blood flow in the stent to rotate. Then a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method was employed to optimize the design of the guider. The numerical simulation showed that the optimized guider could create sufficiently strong spiral flow that, we believe, can efficiently subdue the adverse disturbance to blood flow by the stent so that the arterial restenosis due to the stent implantation might be suppressed.