A Smart Stent for Monitoring Eventual Restenosis: Computational Fluid Dynamic and Finite Element Analysis in Descending Thoracic Aorta

Even though scientific studies of smart stents are extensive, current smart stents focus on pressure sensors. This paper presents a novel implantable biocompatible smart stent for monitoring eventual restenosis. The device is comprised of a metal mesh structure, a biocompatible and adaptable envelope, and pair-operated ultrasonic sensors for restenosis monitoring through flow velocity. Aside from continuous monitoring of restenosis post-implantation, it is also important to evaluate whether the stent design itself causes complications such as restenosis or thrombosis. Therefore, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis before and after stent implantation were carried out as well as finite element analysis (FEA). The proposed smart stent was put in the descending thoracic section of a virtually reconstructed aorta that comes from a computed tomography (CT) scan. Blood flow velocity showed that after stent implantation, there is not liquid retention or vortex generation. In addition, blood pressures after stent implantation were within the normal blood pressure values. The stress and the factor of safety (FOS) analysis showed that the stress values reached by the stent are very far from the yield strength limit of the materials and that the stent is stiff enough to support the applied loads exported from the CFD results.