Computational modelling of blood flow in side arterial branches after stenting of cerebral aneurysms

The major concern with the use of stents as flow diverters for the treatment of intracranial aneurysms is the potential occlusion of a perforating artery or other side branches which can cause ischemic strokes. This article presents image-based patient-specific models of stented cerebral aneurysms in which a small side artery has been jailed by the stent mesh. The results indicate that, because of the large resistances of the distal vascular beds which dominate the flow divisions among the different arterial branches, the flow reduction in jailed side branches is quite small even when a large percentage of the inlet area of these branches has been blocked. This suggests that unless the side branch is completely occluded, it will likely maintain its normal blood flow. Although this conclusion eases the concern of stenting cerebral aneurysms, a complete occlusion can still be caused depending on the conformability characteristics of the stents.