Geometry Governs Mechanics of Cardiovascular Stents Available to Purchase

Cardiovascular stents are tubular lattice structures implanted into a stenosed artery to provide adequate lumen support and promote circulation. Commonly encountered complications are stent migration, NeoIntimal Hyperplasia (NIH), and damage to the arterial wall. Central to all these problems is the mechanical response of a stent to forces operating in situ including stent-artery interaction. The influence of geometry or repetitive pattern of the stent upon its mechanical response is the subject of this study. We focus on damage to the arterial wall caused by the stent which can lead to eventual in-stent restenosis. Stent-artery compliance mismatch and longitudinal strain due to Poisson effect are hypothesized as the main contributing factors to restenosis. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is employed to compare radial compliance and longitudinal strains of different stent geometries. Existing geometrical calculations in the literature [1] are applied to stents of different geometries to compute a non-dimensional NIH index. The main finding is that hybrid lattice stent designs exhibit negligible longitudinal strains (Poisson effect) as the stent expands/contracts during each Cardiac cycle. Wall stresses can be minimized though a careful tailoring of stent geometry.