In vitro investigation of the radial compliance of porcine carotid arteries

Abstract

Abstract The regaining elastic behavior of the artery after treatment with a bioresorbable scaffold is a measure for successful degradation. The investigation of the elastic properties of arteries is often performed using ultrasound based methods. The current study describes an in vitro test setup for the measurement of the elastic radial compliance of blood vessels with an automated laser scanning device. A porcine carotid artery was placed inside a phosphate buffered saline filled chamber and the outer diameter was measured during stepwise pressurization from 20 mmHg to 160 mmHg. Reference measurements were done with an ultrasound based method. The results show that the automated laser scanning device method provides similar values to the ultrasound measurements. Therefore, the automated laser scanning device method appears to be suitable to investigate radial compliance differences of a stented vessel segment during the degradation process of a bioresorbable scaffold in vitro. The high degree of automation allows for an effective investigation of a larger series of measurements.