Residual Stenosis Poststenting and Subsequent Decrease in the Proximal Reference Diameter Are Correlated:Excessive Axial Wall Stress Is a Plausible Explanation

Absorbable metal stents for vascular use in pediatric cardiology: progress and outlook

The past five years have yielded impressive advancements in fully absorbable metal stent technology. The desired ultimate ability for such devices to treat a vascular stenosis without long-term device-related complications or impeding future treatment continues to evoke excitement in clinicians and engineers alike. Nowhere is the need for fully absorbable metal stents greater than in patients experiencing vascular anomalies associated with congenital heart disease (CHD). Perhaps not surprisingly, commercially available absorbable metal stents have been implanted in pediatric cardiology patients with conditions ranging from pulmonary artery and vein stenosis to coarctation of the aorta and conduit/shunt reconstructions. Despite frequent short term procedural success, device performance has missed the mark with the commercially available devices not achieving degradation benchmarks for given applications. In this review we first provide a general overview detailing the theory of absorbable metal stents, and then review recent clinical use in CHD patients since the release of current-generation absorbable metal stents around 2019. We also discuss the challenges and our center's experience associated with the use of absorbable metal stents in this pediatric population. Lastly, we present potential directions for future engineering endeavors to mitigate existing challenges.

Could increased axial wall stress be responsible for the development of atheroma in the proximal segment of myocardial bridges?

BACKGROUND

A recent model describing the mechanical interaction between a stenosis and the vessel wall has shown that axial wall stress can considerably increase in the region immediately proximal to the stenosis during the (forward) flow phases, so that abnormal biological processes and wall damages are likely to be induced in that region. Our objective was to examine what this model predicts when applied to myocardial bridges.

METHOD

The model was adapted to the hemodynamic particularities of myocardial bridges and used to estimate by means of a numerical example the cyclic increase in axial wall stress in the vessel segment proximal to the bridge. The consistence of the results with reported observations on the presence of atheroma in the proximal, tunneled, and distal vessel segments of bridged coronary arteries was also examined.

RESULTS

1) Axial wall stress can markedly increase in the entrance region of the bridge during the cardiac cycle. 2) This is consistent with reported observations showing that this region is particularly prone to atherosclerosis.

CONCLUSION

The proposed mechanical explanation of atherosclerosis in bridged coronary arteries indicates that angioplasty and other similar interventions will not stop the development of atherosclerosis at the bridge entrance and in the proximal epicardial segment if the decrease of the lumen of the tunneled segment during systole is not considerably reduced.

Wall shear stress: theoretical considerations and methods of measurement

In arterial blood flow, the wall shear stress expresses the force per unit area exerted by the wall on the fluid in a direction on the local tangent plane. There is substantial evidence that the wall shear stress induced by the pulsatile blood flow in the arterial system affects the atherogenic process. It is now widely accepted that the vessel segments that appear to be at the highest risk for development of atherosclerosis are those with low wall shear stress or oscillating wall shear stress. The purpose of this article is to define wall shear stress, to introduce relevant concepts of fluid mechanics to nonexperts, and to critically review the various methods that have been used for the assessment of wall shear stress in animal and human blood circulation, paying special attention to the case of coronary arteries.

Characteristics of the turbulent laryngeal jet and its effect on airflow in the human intra-thoracic airways

A computational fluid dynamics technique is applied to understand the relative importance of the upper and intra-thoracic airways and their role in determining central airflow patterns with particular attention paid to the importance of turbulence. The geometry of the human upper respiratory tract is derived from volumetric scans of a volunteer imaged via multidetector-row computed tomography. Geometry 1 consists of a mouthpiece, the mouth, the oropharynx, the larynx, and the intra-thoracic airways of up to six generations. Geometry 2 comprises only the intra-thoracic airways. The results show that a curved sheet-like turbulent laryngeal jet is observed only in geometry 1 with turbulence intensity in the trachea varying from 10% to 20%, whereas the turbulence in geometry 2 is negligible. The presence of turbulence is found to increase the maximum localised wall shear stress by three-folds. The proper orthogonal decomposition analysis reveals that the regions of high turbulence intensity are associated with Taylor-Görtler-like vortices. We conclude that turbulence induced by the laryngeal jet could significantly affect airway flow patterns as well as tracheal wall shear stress. Thus, airflow modeling, particularly subject specific evaluations, should consider upper as well as intra-thoracic airway geometry.

Intramural Stress Increases Exponentially with Stent Diameter: A Stress Threshold for Neointimal Hyperplasia

PURPOSE

Techniques designed to increase initial luminal diameter during stent implantation may ultimately lead to early restenosis by causing substantial vessel wall trauma and promoting neointimal hyperplasia. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of stent oversizing on resultant arterial wall stress concentrations and examine the concept of a "stress threshold" for neointimal hyperplasia development.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A previously described three-dimensional large-strain hyperelastic numeric model was used to examine the nonlinear isotropic behavior of a 6-mm-diameter artery during stent deployment. An in situ axial prestretch of 10% and a mean arterial pressure of 100 mm Hg (13.3 kPa) were applied before stepwise expansion of a simulated Palmaz-Schatz stent to a diameter 30% greater than that of the native artery. The variation of arterial wall von Mises stresses with percentage diameter inflation was then compared with the known distribution of stent-induced neointimal hyperplasia.

RESULTS

The order in which location-specific peak stresses exceeded a predetermined stress threshold was constant: the stent ends surpassed the threshold first, followed by the stent cross-links, then the stent struts, and finally the bare area between the stent struts. These locations corresponded in order to the most common locations of intimal proliferation after stent deployment. An exponential relationship between peak stress concentration and percent stent inflation was formulated.

CONCLUSIONS

Stent-induced intramural stress injury beyond a certain threshold may cause early restenosis by triggering neointimal hyperplasia. Maximum stress concentrations increase exponentially with stent deployment diameter, highlighting the importance of minimal stent overexpansion and novel stent designs that specifically address peak stress reduction.