TY - JOUR A1 - Obermaier, Lisa A1 - Lehle, Karla A1 - Schmid, Stefanie A1 - Schmid, Christof A1 - Schratzenstaller, Thomas T1 - Introduction of a new ex vivo porcine coronary artery model: Evaluation of the direct vascular injury after stent implantation with and without dogbone effect JF - European Surgical Research N2 - Introduction: Neointimal hyperplasia after percutaneous coronary intervention remains a major determinant of in-stent restenosis (ISR). The extent of mechanical vessel injury correlates with ISR. A new ex vivo porcine stent model was introduced and evaluated comparing different stent designs. Methods: Coronary arteries were prepared from pig hearts from the slaughterhouse and used for ex vivo implantations of coronary stents. One basic stent design in two configurations (dogbone, DB; non-dogbone, NDB) was used. Vascular injury was determined according to a modified injury score (IS). Results: Standardized experimental conditions ensured comparable vessel dimensions and overstretch data. DB stents caused more severe IS compared to NDB stents. The mean IS and the IS at the distal end of all stents were significantly reduced for NDB stents (ISMean, DB, 1.16 ±0.12; NDB, 1.02 ±0.12; p=0.018; ISDist, DB, 1.39 ±0.28; NDB, 1.13 ±0.24; p=0.03). Discussion/Conclusion: The introduced ex-vivo model allowed the evaluation of different stent designs exclude unfavorable stent designs. KW - Stent screening KW - Stent design KW - Injury score KW - Ex vivo porcine stent model Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1159/000527883 SN - 1421-9921 VL - 63 IS - 4 SP - 285 EP - 293 PB - Karger CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hoenicka, Markus A1 - Kaspar, Marcel A1 - Schmid, Christof A1 - Liebold, Andreas A1 - Schrammel, Siegfried T1 - Contact-free monitoring of vessel graft stiffness - proof of concept as a tool for vascular tissue engineering JF - Journal of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine N2 - Tissue-engineered vessel grafts have to mimic the biomechanical properties of native blood vessels. Manufacturing processes often condition grafts to adapt them to the target flow conditions. Graft stiffness is influenced by material properties and dimensions and determines graft compliance. This proof-of-concept study evaluated a contact-free method to monitor biomechanical properties without compromising sterility. Forced vibration response analysis was performed on human umbilical vein (HUV) segments mounted in a buffer-filled tubing system. A linear motor and a dynamic signal analyser were used to excite the fluid by white noise (0-200 Hz). Vein responses were read out by laser triangulation and analysed by fast Fourier transformation. Modal analysis was performed by monitoring multiple positions of the vessel surface. As an inverse model of graft stiffening during conditioning, HUV were digested proteolytically, and the course of natural frequencies (NFs) was monitored over 120 min. Human umbilical vein showed up to five modes with NFs in the range of 5-100 Hz. The first natural frequencies of HUV did not alter over time while incubated in buffer (p = 0.555), whereas both collagenase (-35%, p = 0.0061) and elastase (-45%, p < 0.001) treatments caused significant decreases of NF within 120 min. Decellularized HUV showed similar results, indicating that changes of the extracellular matrix were responsible for the observed shift in NF. Performing vibration response analysis on vessel grafts is feasible without compromising sterility or integrity of the samples. This technique allows direct measurement of stiffness as an important biomechanical property, obviating the need to monitor surrogate parameters. Copyright (C) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KW - ANEURYSMS KW - ARTERIES KW - Biomechanics KW - BIOREACTOR KW - BLOOD-VESSELS KW - BYPASS GRAFTS KW - CONSTRUCTS KW - design KW - extracellular matrix KW - human umbilical vein KW - IN-VITRO KW - MECHANICAL-PROPERTIES KW - proteolysis KW - small calibre graft KW - vascular tissue engineering Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/term.2186 VL - 11 IS - 10 SP - 2828 EP - 2835 PB - Wiley ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wiesent, Lisa A1 - Schultheiß, Ulrich A1 - Lulla, Philipp A1 - Noster, Ulf A1 - Schratzenstaller, Thomas A1 - Schmid, Christof A1 - Nonn, Aida A1 - Spear, Ashley T1 - Computational analysis of the effects of geometric irregularities and post-processing steps on the mechanical behavior of additively manufactured 316L stainless steel stents JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Advances in additive manufacturing enable the production of tailored lattice structures and thus, in principle, coronary stents. This study investigates the effects of process-related irregularities, heat and surface treatment on the morphology, mechanical response, and expansion behavior of 316L stainless steel stents produced by laser powder bed fusion and provides a methodological approach for their numerical evaluation. A combined experimental and computational framework is used, based on both actual and computationally reconstructed laser powder bed fused stents. Process-related morphological deviations between the as-designed and actual laser powder bed fused stents were observed, resulting in a diameter increase by a factor of 2-2.6 for the stents without surface treatment and 1.3-2 for the electropolished stent compared to the as-designed stent. Thus, due to the increased geometrically induced stiffness, the laser powder bed fused stents in the as-built (7.11 ± 0.63 N) or the heat treated condition (5.87 ± 0.49 N) showed increased radial forces when compressed between two plates. After electropolishing, the heat treated stents exhibited radial forces (2.38 ± 0.23 N) comparable to conventional metallic stents. The laser powder bed fused stents were further affected by the size effect, resulting in a reduced yield strength by 41% in the as-built and by 59% in the heat treated condition compared to the bulk material obtained from tensile tests. The presented numerical approach was successful in predicting the macroscopic mechanical response of the stents under compression. During deformation, increased stiffness and local stress concentration were observed within the laser powder bed fused stents. Subsequent numerical expansion analysis of the derived stent models within a previously verified numerical model of stent expansion showed that electropolished and heat treated laser powder bed fused stents can exhibit comparable expansion behavior to conventional stents. The findings from this work motivate future experimental/numerical studies to quantify threshold values of critical geometric irregularities, which could be used to establish design guidelines for laser powder bed fused stents/lattice structures. KW - Heat treatment KW - Lasers KW - Surface treatments KW - Specimen preparation and treatment KW - Material properties KW - Stiffness KW - Deformation KW - Powders KW - Koronarendoprothese KW - Rapid prototyping KW - Numerische Methode Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244463 N1 - Corresponding author: Lisa Wiesent VL - 15 IS - 12 SP - 1 EP - 30 PB - PLOS ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wiesent, Lisa A1 - Schultheiss, Ulrich A1 - Schmid, Christof A1 - Schratzenstaller, Thomas A1 - Nonn, Aida T1 - Experimentally validated simulation of coronary stents considering different dogboning ratios and asymmetric stent positioning JF - PlOS One N2 - In-stent restenosis remains a major problem of arteriosclerosis treatment by stenting. Expansion-optimized stents could reduce this problem. With numerical simulations, stent designs/ expansion behaviours can be effectively analyzed. For reasons of efficiency, simplified models of balloon-expandable stents are often used, but their accuracy must be challenged due to insufficient experimental validation. In this work, a realistic stent life-cycle simulation has been performed including balloon folding, stent crimping and free expansion of the balloon-stent-system. The successful simulation and validation of two stent designs with homogenous and heterogeneous stent stiffness and an asymmetrically positioned stent on the balloon catheter confirm the universal applicability of the simulation approach. Dogboning ratio, as well as the final dimensions of the folded balloon, the crimped and expanded stent, correspond well to the experimental dimensions with only slight deviations. In contrast to the detailed stent life-cycle simulation, a displacement-controlled simulation can not predict the transient stent expansion, but is suitable to reproduce the final expanded stent shape and the associated stress states. The detailed stent life-cycle simulation is thus essential for stent expansion analysis/optimization, whereas for reasons of computational efficiency, the displacement-controlled approach can be considered in the context of pure stress analysis. KW - Catheters KW - Coronary stenting KW - Deformation KW - Stent implantation KW - Stiffness KW - Stent KW - Ballondilatation KW - Numerische Strömungssimulation Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224026 VL - 14 IS - 10 SP - 1 EP - 25 PB - PLOS ER -