Assessing flow diverter porosity: a comparative analysis of quantification techniques based on imaging and simulation

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging
• Interventional Neuroradiology

Background:

• Flow diverter porosity impacts blood flow reduction and treatment efficacy in aneurysms.
• Accurate porosity measurement is essential for predicting treatment outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present and compare three distinct methodologies for determining the local porosity of deployed flow diverters.
• To evaluate the accuracy and agreement between experimental and simulation-based porosity measurements.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 3D rotational angiography to create computational vessel models.
• Virtually deployed flow diverters in computational and 3D-printed models.
• Determined porosity using 2D microscopy, 3D Dyna-CT imaging, and ANKYRAS software simulations.

Main Results:

• No statistically significant differences were found between the three porosity measurement methods (p > 0.01).
• Point-by-point analysis showed good agreement, with narrow distributions centered on zero.
• Orthogonal regression confirmed the equivalence of the methods, with minor discrepancies at low-porosity curve segments.

Conclusions:

• The presented methods accurately determine local flow diverter porosity.
• 3D Dyna-CT enables porosity assessment from real patient data.
• Simulations can predict local porosity prior to treatment, aiding in planning.