Flow in the Vascular System Post Stent Implantation: Examining the Near-Stent Flow Physics

As a simplified stent model, fully-developed flow of an incompressible, Newtonian fluid through a curved tube with axially aligned wall protuberances is investigated to define the impact of stent implantation on hemodynamic behavior in curved vessels. According to previous research local hemodynamics tends to trigger biochemical pathways that result in the inception and progression of in-stent restenosis (ISR) and ultimately lead to stent failure. In this manuscript, we focus on hemodynamic changes due to stent strut protrusion into the vessel lumen as a facilitator of ISR. We investigate a range of physiologically relevant stent strut heights and flow parameters using computational fluid dynamics (CFD).