A Computational Modelling for Hemodynamic Conditions Following Flow-Diverting Treatment in Cerebral Aneurysms

Cerebral aneurysms are abnormal dilations of blood vessels within the skull that, in some cases, may rupture and bleed. The rupture of an aneurysm can cause significant bleeding into or around the brain (a stroke). Flow diverters are specially designed low porosity stents that are deployed into the parent artery to cover the neck of the aneurysm. The dense mesh-like structure of flow diverters aims at redirecting flow from the aneurysm to the parent artery and vice versa, resulting in flow stasis in the aneurysm and promoting thrombus formation conditions. The thrombosed aneurysm is then resorbed by the body’s wound healing mechanisms-the end result of which is a remodeled vessel returned to its normal physiological state. Most previous studies have been focused on correlating the hemodynamic conditions with the outcome of the flow diverters. On the other hand, the effects of the location of the stents have not been addressed. In this study, a numerical simulation of an idealized side wall aneurysm model is used to predict the hemodynamic conditions for different flow diverter stent locations. The CFD model of the aneurysm is developed based on data from the literature and the geometrical parameters are set according to the test data. Pulsatile boundary conditions are chosen according to the normal physiological conditions. The entire stent geometry is used to model the effect of the stent on the flow characteristics. The hemodynamic conditions in the aneurysm corresponding to different stent locations are compared. The results show that the average velocity and vorticity are significantly different depending on different stent locations. Marked reduction in average velocity, average vorticity, and mean wall shear stress within the aneurysm sac have been observed even in malposition cases. The results of this study can be further used to guide the deployment of the flow diverter stent in clinical application.