Computation of the change in length of a braided device when deployed in realistic vessel models.

Purpose: An important issue in the deployment of braided stents, such as flow diverters, is the change in length, also known as foreshortening, underwent by the device when is released from the catheter into a blood vessel. The position of the distal end is controlled by the interventionist, but knowing a priori the position of the proximal end of the device is not trivial. In this work, we assess and validate a novel computer method to predict the length that a braided stent will adopt inside a silicon model of an anatomically accurate vessel.