Effect of Stent Implantation on the Deformations of the Superficial Femoral Artery and Popliteal Artery: In Vivo Three-Dimensional Deformational Analysis from Two-Dimensional Radiographs.

The objective of this work was to develop a system for three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the femoropopliteal artery from two angiographic views and to quantify the in vivo 3D deformations in 18 patients before balloon angioplasty and after primary stent implantation. The procedure had an insignificant effect on the bending behavior of the artery, as the average mean curvature change within the lesion remained constant before (0.04 cm(-1) ± 0.03) and after stent implantation (0.03 cm(-1) ± 0.04). A significant effect of stent implantation was measured in terms of a decrease in arterial shortening during leg flexion.