Fast and Accurate Computation of the Displacement Force of Stent Grafts after Endovascular Aneurysm Repair

Purpose: Currently, the displacement force of stent grafts is generally obtained using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which requires professional CFD knowledge to perform the correct simulation. This study proposes a fast, simple, and clinician-friendly approach to calculating the patient-specific displacement force after endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR). Methods: Twenty patient-specific post-EVAR computed tomography angiography images were used to reconstruct the patient-specific three-dimensional models, then the displacement forces were calculated using CFD and the proposed approaches, respectively, and their numerical differences were compared and analyzed. Results: Based on the derivation and simplification of the momentum theorem, the patient-specific displacement forces were obtained using the information of the patient-specific pressure, cross-sectional area, and angulation of the two stent graft ends, and the average relative error was no greater than 1.37% when compared to the displacement forces calculated by CFD. In addition, the linear regression analysis also showed good agreement between the displacement force values calculated by the new approach and CFD (R = 0.999). Conclusions: The proposed approach can quickly and accurately calculate the patient-specific displacement force on a stent graft and can therefore help clinicians quickly evaluate the post-EVAR displacement force.