Stent-assisted coiling

see also Balloon-assisted coiling

Stent-assisted coiling technology has been widely used in the treatment of intracranial aneurysms.

Stent-assisted coiling achieved better complete occlusion rates of aneurysms at 6 months or later after the procedure compared to balloon assisted coiling, without being associated with a higher risk of intraprocedural complications and retreatment ¹⁾.

Stent-assisted coiling (SAC) and balloon-assisted coiling (BAC) were alternative techniques developed to deal with complex aneurysms, but studies have shown their less than expected efficacy given their high rate of recanalization ^{2) 3) 4) 5)}.

Stent-assisted coiling for wide-neck intracranial aneurysm

Stent-assisted coiling for wide-neck intracranial aneurysm.

Dual stent-assisted coil embolization

Dual stent-assisted coil embolization.

Middle cerebral artery aneurysm Stent-assisted coiling

see Middle cerebral artery aneurysm Stent-assisted coiling.

Case series

Stent-assisted coiling case series.

In vitro simulator

There are several complications associated with Stent-assisted Coil Embolization (SACE) in cerebral aneurysm treatments, due to damaging operations by surgeons and undesirable mechanical properties of stents. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an in vitro simulator that provides both training and research for evaluating the mechanical properties of stents.

A new in vitro simulator for three-dimensional digital subtraction angiography was constructed, followed by aneurysm models fabricated with new materials. Next, this platform was used to provide training and to conduct photoelastic stress analysis to evaluate the SACE technique.

The average interaction stress increasingly varied for the two different stents. Improvements for the Maximum-Likelihood Expectation-Maximization method were developed to reconstruct cross-sections with both thickness and stress information.

The technique presented can improve a surgeon's skills and quantify the performance of stents to improve mechanical design and classification. This method can contribute to three-dimensional stress and volume variation evaluation and assess a surgeon's skills ⁶⁾.