APPLICATION OF SINGULARITY EXPANSION METHOD FOR MONITORING THE DEPLOYMENT OF ARTERIAL STENTS

摘要

A stent is a metal tube used to treat blocked blood vessels in the body. The stent is deployed into obstructed part of the blood vessel to keep it open and improve the blood flow in the diseased area. During the stent implantation, the collapsed stent is expanded into the artery to a size so as to stick to the artery walls. Because of the significant health dangers caused by the over-expansion or under-expansion of the stent, having a proper estimation of diameter of the stent in the artery during expansion is important. However, yet to date, no method exists that would allow real time monitoring during and after the stent expansion process. In this article, we present a novel methodology to estimate diameter of the stent during and after deployment in the artery by applying the singularity expansion method (SEM). According to SEM, the transient electromagnetic signal scattered from bodies can be described by poles and residues. Poles are intrinsic property of the body that can be used to detect deformation of an object such as expansion. We have demonstrated the idea of estimating diameter of a stent via tracking poles by both simulation and measurement.