Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is the focal dilation of the terminal aorta, which can lead to rupture if left untreated. Traditional endovascular aneurysm repair techniques are minimally invasive and pose low mortality rates compared with open surgical repair; however, endovascular aneurysm repair procedures face challenges in accommodating variations in the patient's anatomy. Complex aneurysms are defined when the sac extends past the renal arteries or has an insufficient neck landing zone to deploy a traditional endograft.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCoronary artery disease leads to over 360,000 deaths annually in the United States, and off-the-shelf bypass graft options are currently limited and/or have high failure rates. Tissue-engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) present an attractive option, though the promising mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based implants face uncertain regulatory pathways. In this study, "artificial MSCs" (ArtMSCs) were fabricated by encapsulating MSC-conditioned media (CM) in poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) microparticles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Dissection or rupture of the aorta is accompanied by high mortality rates, and there is a pressing need for better prediction of these events for improved patient management and clinical outcomes. Biomechanically, these events represent a situation wherein the locally acting wall stress exceed the local tissue strength. Based on recent reports for polymers, we hypothesized that aortic tissue failure strength and stiffness are directly associated with tissue mass density.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAbdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) have been rigorously investigated to understand when their clinically-estimated risk of rupture-an event that is the 13th leading cause of death in the US-exceeds the risk associated with repair. Yet the current clinical guideline remains a one-size-fits-all "maximum diameter criterion" whereby AAA exceeding a threshold diameter is thought to make the risk of rupture high enough to warrant intervention. However, between 7 and 23.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe stress-strain curve of biological soft tissues helps characterize their mechanical behavior. The yield point on this curve is when a specimen breaches its elastic range due to irreversible microstructural damage. The yield point is easily found using the offset yield method in traditional engineering materials.
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