Applying computer simulation to the design of flow-diversion treatment for intracranial aneurysms

Although flow-diversion (FD) treatment has been proven to be able to induce intracranial aneurysm (IA) occlusion, clinical follow-ups reported that a number of patients may still suffer from delayed IA rupture or incomplete aneurysm occlusion post-treatment. Complete aneurysm occlusion is believed to be associated with favourable haemodynamic alteration post-treatment, which may be greatly affected by the selection of device size and quantity, as well as the FD deployment procedure. However, clinicians have to choose and deploy the FD relying on their experience, since no post-stenting haemodynamic information is generally available to them prior to a specific treatment. In this study, using a virtual FD deployment technique and computational fluid dynamics method, we demonstrate and compare the haemodynamic changes after virtual FD treatments using a variety of prospective treating strategies.