Compliant design of artificial graft: compliance determination by new digital X-ray imaging system-based method

The development of an artificial graft requires formulation of biomechanical design criteria. The compliance of artifical grafts, based on the intraluminal pressure-internal diameter (Pi-Di) relationship, was measured by a novel method using a digital X-ray imaging system coupled with an edge detection algorithm and a pressure transducer. The Pi-Di values were obtained from digital angiographic images under continuous inflation of a canine femoral artery anastomosed with an expanded poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (ePTFE) vascular graft as a model vessel with a pressurized contrast medium. The Di at Pi using an NIH Image software specially programmed for the entropy filter method, which enables the detection of the edge of the vessel phantoms of the images, was determined. The Pi-Di relationships showed a "J-shape" curve for the artery, a steeper line with a very low pressure-dependent distensibility for the ePTFE graft, and an intermediate curve for the anastomosis protion. The two indices for the vessel compliance, the stiffness parameter (beta value) and the diameter compliance (Cd), both of which were calculated from the Pi-Di relationships, were 10.6 and 6.8%/mmHg x 10(-2) for the artery, 164 and 0.51%/mmHg x 10(-2) for the ePTFE, and 14.4 and 5.5%/mmHg x 10(-2) for the anastomosis portion, respectively. This method can measure compliance at any portions of the sampling vessel in a single experiment on a real-time basis with very high accuracy, compared with conventional methods, and even in cases of intimal thickening and/or connective tissues-adhered vessels, and may serve to provide information on compliant design criteria of artificial and tissue-engineered graft.