Biomechanical and structural assessment of transluminal angioplasty

The increasing incidence of stroke is frequently maintained by the processes narrowing precerebral and cerebral arteries. That is why the surgical treatment of cerebrovascular disorders has increasingly included percutaneous transluminal angioplasty. However, the influence of transluminal angioplasty on the biomechanical properties of arterial wall have not been assessed so far. The cylindrical segments of left and right internal carotid artery, middle cerebral artery, anterior cerebral artery, vertebral artery, basilar artery and posterior cerebral artery were taken from 40 autopsy subjects aged from 20 to 75 who had no systemic lesions with the exception of atherosclerosis. The biomechanical examination and experimental transluminal angioplasty of the segments were carried out with special equipment developed for this purpose. The data were obtained using a TV camera assisted measurement and morphometric and histological methods. The examination of the biomechanical properties repeated after the experimental transluminal angioplasty shows the additional relative strain of the external diameter of vessel and the decrease of the arterial wall tangential elastic modulus in the circumferential direction. This suggests that if transluminal angioplasty results in sufficient structural damage of the arterial wall than there will be an improvement in the ability of the vessel diameter to increase under normal blood pressure conditions.