assessment of vascular injury following stent retriever retraction in clinically-relevant endothelialized silicone models.

Mechanical thrombectomy devices have potential to injure the vessel during treatment of acute ischemic stroke. The goal of the current work was to tailor in vitro endothelialized silicone models for stent retriever assessment and to evaluate endothelial injury following treatment by various stent retriever designs and sizes. Clinically-relevant neurovascular geometries were first modeled out of silicone, then sterilized, coated with fibronectin, placed in bioreactors, seeded with human endothelial cells, and cultivated under flow.

Evaluation of vessel injury after simulated catheter use in an endothelialized silicone model of the intracranial arteries.

Purpose: Neurothrombectomy catheters can disrupt or injure the vessel wall. This potential injury is often studied in animal or cadaver models, but prior work suggests that endothelialized silicone models may be an option for early in vitro assessment. The purpose of this work was to create a complex, clinically-relevant endothelialized neurovascular silicone model, and to determine the utility of the model for evaluating vessel injury due to catheter simulated use.

Endothelialized silicone aneurysm models for in vitro evaluation of flow diverters.

Objective: The goal of this work was to endothelialize silicone aneurysm tubes for use as in vitro models for evaluating endothelial cell interactions with neurovascular devices. The first objective was to establish consistent and confluent endothelial cell linings and to evaluate the silicone vessels over time. The second objective was to use these silicone vessels for flow diverter implantation and assessment.

Quantifying the mechanical and histological properties of thrombus analog made from human blood for the creation of synthetic thrombus for thrombectomy device testing.

Background: Untreated ischemic stroke can lead to severe morbidity and death, and as such, there are numerous endovascular blood-clot removal (thrombectomy) devices approved for human use. Human thrombi types are highly variable and are typically classified in qualitative terms - 'soft/red,' 'hard/white,' or 'aged/calcified.' Quantifying human thrombus properties can accelerate the development of thrombus analogs for the study of thrombectomy outcomes, which are often inconsistent among treated patients.