Abstract
We present numerical simulations of blood flow through a brain vascular aneurysm with an artificial stent using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). The aim of this work is to analyze how the flow into an aneurysm changes using different stent configurations. The initial conditions for the simulations were constructed from angiographic images of a real patient with an aneurysm. The wall shear stresses, pressure and highest velocity within the artery, and other particular quantities are calculated which are of medical specific interest. The numerical simulations of the cerebral circulation help doctors to determine if the patient’s own vascular anatomy has the conditions to allow arterial stenting by endovascular method before the surgery or even evaluate the effect of different stent structure and materials. The results show that the flow downstream the aneurysm is highly modified by the stent configuration and that the best choice for reducing the flow in the aneurysm is to use a completely extended Endeavor stent.
Highlights
Brain vascular pathologies are difficult to treat and have a broad field of research
We have presented exploratory SPH calculations of blood flow through a brain vascular aneurysm using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) methods
The flow structure within the aneurysm was investigated in terms of the flow velocity, the internal pressure and the wall shear stresses for five model cases of flow with and without stent
Summary
Brain vascular pathologies are difficult to treat and have a broad field of research. Not all the aneurysms can be treated in that way This is the case of fusiform aneurysms, of saccular aneurysms with wide neck and giant aneurysms that are very big to be filled by coils, which must be treated with surgery or with a special device called flow diverter, stents and low profile endovascular devices [8] [9] [10]. This kind of devices are like expandable cylinders put by endovascular access that cover the inner membrane of the vessels avoiding or lowering the flow of blood within the aneurysm that could eventually lead to thrombosis. The stents are composed of a mesh that is organized following an architecture of open-cells or closed cell [11] (see Figure 1)
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