THE COMPREHENSIVE FINITE ELEMENT MODEL FOR STENTING: THE INFLUENCE OF STENT DESIGN ON THE OUTCOME AFTER CORONARY STENT PLACEMENT

Stenting is one of the most important methods to treat atherosclerosis. Due to its simplicity and efficiency, the use of coronary stents in interventional procedures has rapidly increased, and different stent designs have been introduced in the market. In order to select the most appropriate stent design, it is necessary to analyze and compare the mechanical behavior of different types of stents. In this paper, the finite element method is used for analyzing the behavior of stents. The aim of this work is to investigate the expansion characteristics of a stent as it is deployed and implanted in an artery containing a plaque and propose a model as close to real conditions of stent implantation as possible. Furthermore, two commercially available stents (the Palmaz-Schatz and Multi-Link stents) are modeled and their behavior during the deployment is compared in terms of stress distribution, radial gain, outer diameter changes and dogboning. Moreover, the effect of stent design on the restenosis rate is investigated by comparing the stress distribution in the arteries. The results show the importance of considering the plaque in finite element simulation of mechanical behavior of the coronary stent. According to the findings, the possibility of restenosis is nonsignificantly lower for the Multi-Link stent in comparison with the Palmaz-Schatz stent, which is in good agreement with clinical results.