Experimental research of the pressure reduction on AAA wall by the insertion of a stent graft

The purpose of this study was to inestigate the influence of stent grafts on the wall pressure of aneurysms and find out what kind of stent graft is suitable for curing aneurysm. A set of experiment apparatus that simulated the human heart and artery was set up, including an elastic abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) model which was made of rubber. The influence of healing induced by stent grafts with different diameters and either permeable or impermeable on the AAA were inestigated by comparing experiments using the AAA model with clinical stent grafts in a pulsatile flow system that simulated human blood circulation. The experiment results show that the pressure on the AAA wall reduced after the insertion of a stent graft. The permeable stent graft is not propitious to the pressure reduction. Furthermore, the reduction of pressure is related to stent graft diameter, that is, stent grafts whose diameter is 10-15% larger than the arterial diameter leads to the optimal reduction of the wall pressure. The results are unprecedented and expected to hae significant clinical applications.