In search for a better stent: Surrogate based multi-objective optimization of stent design under influence of vessel wall deformation.

Abstract

Stenting is known as one of the main treatment procedure for some intravascular abnormalities such as stenosis and aneurysm. In recent years, stent optimization has been conducted by several research groups in order to increase its treatment efficacy. If we can observe post-deployment behavior on the blood vessel with respect to different stent designs, this observation will be useful in the design process. Kriging surrogate model based on fluid flow simulation on a deformed vessel wall was developed in order to observe this behavior. Multi-objectives optimization was performed with configurations of gap and size as design variables. In this research, percentage of low wall shear stress (WSS) area and average mechanical stress along the deployment area were set as the objective functions. We can recommend that strut with medium size around 100 - 250 micron with a relatively big inter-strut gap is suitable for achieving the optimize criteria. This is because on this range, acceptable optimized value of both objectives functions are successfully obtained.