Patient-Specific Physical and Computational Models for Replicating Coronary Stent Deployment

BACKGROUND: Percutaneous coronary intervention with balloon angioplasty and stent implantation is standard therapy for coronary artery disease, but accurate prediction of patient-specific procedural outcomes remains challenging. CASE SUMMARY: Patient-derived imaging data were used to reconstruct three-dimensional coronary models, which were further translated into a three-dimensional-printed physical phantom and a finite element digital twin. The identical stent and balloon were deployed in the phantom; stent deployment was computationally simulated, and both were compared with the clinical optical coherence tomography. DISCUSSION: Both platforms reproduced key procedural features. The phantom moderately underestimated, and the finite element model overestimated, the clinically observed lumen gain. These proof-of-concept findings support the technical feasibility of building patient-specific artificial twins, but quantitative accuracy will require further model refinement and validation before clinical use. TAKE-HOME MESSAGE: Patient-specific models offer a means to visualize procedural characteristics and test alternative stent designs or deployment strategies outside the patient.