In vitro investigation of contrast flow jet timing in patient-specific intracranial aneurysms.

Background: The direction and magnitude of intra-aneurysmal flow jet are significant risk factors of subarachnoid hemorrhage, and the change of flow jet during an endovascular procedure has been used for prediction of aneurysm occlusion or whether an additional flow diverter (FD) is warranted. However, evaluation of flow jets is often unreliable due to a large variation of flow jet on the digital subtraction angiograms, and this flow pattern variation may result in incorrect clinical diagnosis Therefore, factors contributing to the variation in flow jet are examined at an in vitro setting, and the findings can help us to understand the nature of flow jet and devise a better plan to quantify the aneurysmal hemodynamics accurately.

Methods: Intra-aneurysmal flows in three patient-specific aneurysms between 11 and 25 mm were investigated in vitro, and a FD was deployed in each aneurysm model.