Towards effects from stent implantation into coronary bifurcation stenosis: experiment and simulation

Coronary artery disease is a widespread cause of death and disability in the population. Angioplasty of the coronary arteries is one of the most common methods of eliminating the cause of ischemia – stenosis of the coronary arteries. As a result of stent installation, a change in the angle of vascular bifurcation occurs usually, as well as a redistribution of volumetric blood flow in the coronary artery system. Considering the high variability of the branching angioarchitecture of these arteries, as well as the structure of their environment, the problem of predicting the specific redistribution of blood flow in these arteries remains unsolved; the main ways of its implementation are computational and experimental hemodynamics. Material and methods. This paper uses an experimental approach to explore the effect of stent placement in a model of coronary artery stenosis, and also provides an analysis of the current level of awareness of the scientific community on this issue. Results and discussion. The experiment showed that the throughput of the model increases by 14 % compared to the model with stenosis, and the redistribution of flows in the model depends not on diameters but on the anatomy of a particular vascular network. The data of the performed mathematical modeling are generally consistent with the results of the experiment before stent installation, when the coronary tree consists of several load-bearing branches, but have quantitative differences for the distal branches of the coronary artery model in the presence of an installed stent. Conclusions. The results of the work can be used to accumulate an experimental data array on the restructuring of blood flow during angioplasty, and can also be used to verify the numerical hemodynamics of the coronary arteries during the virtual installation of a stent in them to resolve stenosis.