Authors: Nicolas Aristokleous Nikolaos G Kontopodis Konstantinos Tzirakis Christos V Ioannou Yannis Papaharilaou
Publish Date: 2015/12/16
Volume: 54, Issue: 10, Pages: 1523-1532
Abstract
The current study aims to computationally evaluate the hemodynamic impact of a novel sealing mechanism employed by a recently developed endograft Ovation TriVascular StentGraft System for endovascular aneurysm repair The exploitation of two inflatable Orings to achieve sealing may be advantageous in terms of accommodating challenging anatomies but comes at a price of a marked inflow stenosis Here four representative patient cases of inflow stenosis ranging from 30 to 80 were analyzed Lumen surface models were constructed from 1 month postoperative computed tomography images and then used to numerically compute the complex endograft flow field Our results highlight coexistence of stenotic wall regions exposed to high shear rate and poststenotic recirculation zones These conditions may implicate platelet activation and predispose thrombus formation and thromboembolic complications A clinically insignificant cycleaveraged pressure drop along the inflow stenosis and further in the endograft main body legs was predicted range 001–172 mmHg which was however notable at peak systole range 352–1973 mmHg Although the functional impact of the endograft stenosis at rest flow conditions may appear insignificant increased flow rate during exercise is expected to strongly accentuate the observed effects Pressure drop in the endograft legs was attributed to suboptimal based on Murray’s scaling law crosssectional area ratio between trunk and legs of the device
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