Bioimpedance Sensing of Implanted Stent Occlusions: Smart Stent

Coronary artery disease is one of the most common diseases in developed countries and affects a large part of the population of developing countries. Preventing restenosis in patients with implanted stents is an important current medical problem. The purpose of this work is to analyse the viability of bioimpedance sensing to detect the formation of atheromatous plaque in an implantable stent. Simulations in COMSOL Multiphysics were performed to analyse the performance of the proposed bioimpedance sensing system, based on the Sheffield technique. Both non-pathological and pathological models (with atheromatous plaque), including the flow of blood were considered. Simulations with the non-pathological model showed a homogeneous distribution of the measured current intensity in the different electrodes, for every configuration. On the other hand, simulations with the pathological model showed a significant decrease of the measured current intensity in the electrodes close to the simulated atheromatous plaque. The presence of the atheromatous plaque can, therefore, be detected by the system with a simple algorithm, avoiding the full reconstruction of the image and the subsequent computational processing requirements.

Automated summary

Assessing the viability of bioimpedance sensing to detect atheromatous plaque formation in implantable stents was the focus of this study. Simulations in COMSOL Multiphysics were performed using both non-pathological and pathological models, taking into account the flow of blood. The results showed that the proposed bioimpedance sensing system could successfully detect the presence of atheromatous plaque based on the measured current intensity in the electrodes. This simple algorithm approach eliminates the need for complex image reconstruction and computational processing.