Investigation of Cerebral Hemodynamics During Endovascular Aspiration: Development of an Experimental and Numerical Setup

Claudio Luisi, A. Amiri, Martin Büsen, T. Sichermann, O. Nikoubashman, Martin Wiesmann, Ulrich Steinseifer, Marguerite Mueller, Michael Neidlin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Purpose
Acute ischemic stroke is a life-threatening emergency caused by an occlusion of a cerebral artery through a blood clot. Aspiration thrombectomy is an endovascular therapy for the removal of vessel occlusions. However, open questions regarding the hemodynamics during the intervention remain, motivating investigations of blood flow within cerebral arteries. In this study, we present a combined experimental and numerical approach to analyze hemodynamics during endovascular aspiration.

Methods
We have developed an in vitro setup for investigations of hemodynamic changes during endovascular aspiration within a compliant model of patient-specific cerebral arteries. Pressures, flows, and locally resolved velocities were obtained. In addition, we established a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model and compared the simulations during physiological conditions and in two aspiration scenarios with different occlusions.

Results
Flow redistribution within cerebral arteries after ischemic stroke is strongly dependent on the severity of the occlusion and on the volume flow extracted by endovascular aspiration. Numerical simulations exhibit an excellent correlation of R = 0.92 for flow rates and a good correlation of R = 0.73 for pressures. Further on, the local velocity field inside the basilar artery had a good agreement between CFD model and particle image velocimetry (PIV) data.

Conclusion
The presented setup allows for in vitro investigations of artery occlusions and endovascular aspiration techniques on arbitrary patient-specific cerebrovascular anatomies. The in silico model provides consistent predictions of flows and pressures in several aspiration scenarios.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)393-403
Number of pages11
JournalCardiovascular Engineering and Technology
Volume14
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Externally publishedYes

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