A MULTISCALE APPROACH TO FAILURE ASSESSMENT IN DEPLOYMENT FOR CARDIOVASCULAR STENTS

Cardiovascular stents are tiny scaffolds that are used in the treatment of heart disease. The recent development of drug-eluting stents has lead to stent implantation in arterial regions that would previously have been considered too complex. Deployment in these tortuous and branched regions results in an increased deformation of the stent. It is thus important to assess whether there is an increased likelihood of stent failure in deployment in such regions. A multiscale approach, incorporating the results of microscale modeling of failure in individual stent struts and macroscale modeling of stent deployment in realistic arterial geometries is considered in this work. Such an approach allows for a more accurate assessment of failure than is obtainable through the macroscale modeling of deployment in idealized arterial geometries alone, as is presented in previous studies. Results give an insight into failure risks for different stent implantation scenarios: stent failure is unlikely in deployment in tortuous vessels, however there may be risks associated with certain bifurcational stenting techniques.