Guidewire path determination for intravascular applications
Fernando M Cardoso1, Sergio S Furuie1
1a Department of Telecommunication and Control Engineering , Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, School of Engineering, University of Sao Paulo , Sao Paulo , Brazil.
Insights
This study introduces a novel physics-based method to accurately predict guidewire and catheter paths during endovascular interventions. The technique offers improved precision and robustness for simulating device navigation in blood vessels.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Medical Device Simulation
- Computational Fluid Dynamics
Background:
- Vascular diseases are a leading cause of mortality, often requiring endovascular interventions.
- Accurate prediction of guidewire and catheter paths is crucial for successful endovascular procedures.
- Existing computational methods face challenges in achieving high accuracy and precision.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a new computational method for simulating guidewire and catheter navigation within blood vessels.
- To improve the accuracy and reliability of predicting device trajectories in endovascular interventions.
- To provide a simple, intuitive, and adaptable tool for physicians and researchers.
Main Methods:
- A novel method based on the equilibrium of forces to iteratively find the minimum energy configuration of the guidewire/catheter.
- Validation using physical phantoms with a 0.33 mm stainless steel guidewire.
- Comparison with existing relevant computational methods from the literature.
Main Results:
- Achieved Root Mean Square (RMS) errors of 0.30 mm (2D) and 0.97 mm (3D), representing <2% and <20% of the phantom's lumen diameter.
- Demonstrated superior performance compared to other benchmarked methods.
- Exhibited low variation (σ=0.03 mm) in results despite parameter variations, indicating robustness and ease of use.
Conclusions:
- The proposed physics-based simulation technique offers a significant advancement in predicting guidewire and catheter paths.
- The method's accuracy, robustness, and simplicity make it a valuable tool for endovascular procedure planning and research.
- Its foundation in basic physics principles ensures ease of learning and adaptation for clinical and research applications.
Abstract:
Vascular diseases are among the major causes of death in developed countries and the treatment of those pathologies may require endovascular interventions, in which the physician utilizes guidewires and catheters through the vascular system to reach the injured vessel region. Several computational studies related to endovascular procedures are in constant development. Thus, predicting the guidewire path may be of great value for both physicians and researchers. However, attaining good accuracy and precision is still an important issue. We propose a method to simulate and predict the guidewire and catheter path inside a blood vessel based on equilibrium of a new set of forces, which leads, iteratively, to the minimum energy configuration. This technique was validated with phantoms using a ∅0.33 mm stainless steel guidewire and compared to other relevant methods in the literature. This method presented RMS error 0.30 mm and 0.97 mm, which represents less than 2% and 20% of the lumen diameter of the phantom, in 2D and 3D cases, respectively. The proposed technique presented better results than other methods from the literature, which were included in this work for comparison. Moreover, the algorithm presented low variation (σ=0:03 mm) due to the variation of the input parameters. Therefore, even for a wide range of different parameters configuration, similar results are presented for the proposed approach, which is an important feature and makes this technique easier to work with. Since this method is based on basic physics, it is simple, intuitive, easy to learn and easy to adapt.
