3d Graphical Models for Vascular-stent Pose Simulation

Stents are playing an increasing role in treatment of arterial stenoses and aneurysms. The goal of this work is to help the clinician in the pre-operative choice of the stent’s length and diameter. This is done by ”plunging” a model of the stent into real vascular 3D image. Two models are used. First, a simple geometrical model, composed of a set of circles or polygons stacked along the vessel’s centerline, is used to simulate the introduction and the deployment of the stent. Second, a simplexmesh model with an adapted cylindrical constraint is used to represent the stent surface. Another axially constrained simplex-mesh deformable model is used to reconstruct the 3D vessel wall. We simulate the interaction between the vessel wall and the stent by imposing that the model of the vessel locally fits the shape of the deployed-stent model. Preliminary quantitative results of the vessel reconstruction accuracy are given. keywords: vascular pathology, stenosis, stent, 3D image, simulation, generalized cylinder, simplex mesh, deformable model