The conical stent in coronary artery improves hemodynamics compared with the traditional cylindrical stent.

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to explore the efficacy of the conical stent implantation in the coronary artery by comparing the effects of cylindrical and conical stents on wall shear stress (WSS) and velocity of flow and fractional flow reserve (FFR).

BACKGROUND: The traditional cylindrical stent currently used in the percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has a consistent diameter, which does not match the physiological change of the coronary artery. On the contrary, as a new patent, the conical stent with tapering lumen is consistent with the physiological change of vascular diameter. However, the effect of the conical stent implantation on the coronary hemodynamics remains unclear.

METHODS: The coronary artery, artery stenosis and two stent models were established by Solidworks software. All models were imported into the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS ICEM-CFD to establish the fluid model. After the boundary conditions were set, CFD analysis was proceeded to compare the effects of two stent implantation on the change of WSS, velocity of flow and FFR.

RESULTS: Hemodynamic indexes including FFR, blood flow velocity distribution (BVD) and WSS were improved by either the cylindrical or the conical stent implantation. However, after the conical stent implantation, the change of FFR seemed to be slower and more homogenous; the blood flow velocity was more appropriate without any obvious blood stagnation and direction changes; the WSS after the conical stent implantation was uniform from the proximal to distal side of the stent.

CONCLUSIONS: Compared with the cylindrical stent, the conical stent implantation in the coronary artery can make the changes of vascular hemodynamic more closer to the physiological condition, which can reduce the incidence of intra-stent restenosis and thrombosis, thus making it more suitable for PCI therapy.