Computational Modeling and Simulation to Quantify the Effects of Obstructions on the Performance of Ventricular Catheters Used in Hydrocephalus Treatment.

Pediatric hydrocephalus is a debilitating condition that affects an estimated 1-2 in 1000 newborns, and there is no cure. A traditional treatment is surgical insertion of a shunt system which was designed 50 years ago, and minimal ensuing progress has been made in improving the failure rate of these devices resulting in the need for multiple brain surgeries during an affected child's lifetime for shunt replacement. A first step toward decreasing the failure rate is to optimize the ventricular catheter component of the shunt to minimize its propensity for obstruction.

Causes, Complications, and Costs Associated with External Ventricular Drainage Catheter Obstruction.

Ventricular catheter obstructions in patients treated with external ventricular drains (EVDs) have the potential to substantially impact the cost of patient care. There is a paucity of literature that directly addresses catheter obstruction over large numbers of patients with EVDs in multiple centers. Contemporary literature was reviewed to characterize causes, complications, and costs of EVD catheter obstruction.

A Review on the Effectiveness of Surgical Intervention for Symptomatic Intracranial Arachnoid Cysts in Adults.

Background: Intracranial arachnoid cysts are generally benign and can be asymptomatic or symptomatic. When symptoms are indicated, the effects of arachnoid cysts can be disabling to the patient. Quantitative assessment on the effectiveness of surgical intervention to relieve symptoms is inconsistently reported throughout the literature and is often contradictory.

A computational fluid dynamics simulation framework for ventricular catheter design optimization.

In this research an optimization methodology and 3D computational fluid dynamics algorithm were coupled to reach an important design objective for ventricular catheters: uniform inlet flow distribution. The optimized catheter design presented significantly improves on previous designs explored in the literature and on standard catheter designs used clinically. The automated, iterative fluid simulation framework described in this work can be used to rapidly explore design parameter influence on other flow-related objectives in the future.

Ventricular catheter development: past, present, and future.

Cerebrospinal fluid diversion via ventricular shunting is the prevailing contemporary treatment for hydrocephalus. The CSF shunt appeared in its current form in the 1950s, and modern CSF shunts are the result of 6 decades of significant progress in neurosurgery and biomedical engineering. However, despite revolutionary advances in material science, computational design optimization, manufacturing, and sensors, the ventricular catheter (VC) component of CSF shunts today remains largely unchanged in its functionality and capabilities from its original design, even though VC obstruction remains a primary cause of shunt failure.