Hemodynamic alterations of a patient-specific intracranial aneurysm induced by virtual deployment of stents in various axial orientation

The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of stent axial orientation on saccular aneurysm hemodynamics. Two commercial stents, Neuroform stent (stent 1) and Zilver stent (stent 2) are modeled in this study. Both stents are virtually deployed with four different axial orientations to fit into the luminal surface of a patient-specific internal carotid artery (ICA) aneurysm model. Computational hemodynamic analyses are carried out in unstented and stented aneurysm models. The intra-aneurismal flows of stented aneurysm models show disturbed and complex flow patterns while the flow activities and the forces acting on the aneurysm wall are generally alleviated by stenting. The influence of the axial orientation of the stent on the aneurysm hemodynamics is more significant for stent 2 which has a larger strut size compared to stent 1. Interestingly, the flow activity in the aneurysm is rather increased when the intra-luminal scaffolding of stent is not sufficient.