Title: The Role of Applied Mathematics in the Design of Coronary Stents

Abstract: Since their introduction in the 1980s, coronary stents have undergone significant design improvements, making them a critical tool for treating severe obstructions. From original Bare-Metal Stents (BMS) to Drug Eluting Stents (DES) to the most recent experience of Bioresorbable Stents, the design of these scaffolds was minimally supported by mathematical tools. The patient-specific quantitative analysis of stented coronaries is a difficult task for the variety of complex morphologies left by the stent deployment. Therefore, this type of analysis was limited to a minimal number of patients, not compatible with clinical trials. On the other hand, the development and the failure of Bioresorbable Stents clearly pointed out the importance of rigorous quantitative tools in the design of next-generation scaffolds. In this talk, we will present recent results in investigating coronary stents based on Applied Mathematics (as opposed to traditional animal models).

We will consider in detail (1) the modeling of the elution in a multidomain problem solved by iterative substructuring methods involving simultaneously the lumen, the wall, and the struts of the stents; (2) the impact of the struts on the wall shear stress of a significant number of patients; (3) the consequent role of shape optimization and model order reduction in the design of scaffolds. 

This journey through a sophisticated combination of data and models will pinpoint the critical role of applied mathematics and scientific computing not only for a basic understanding of the biomechanics of stents, but also for the clinical routine and the design of more performing prostheses.

With the support of: NIH R01EB031101 (PI L. Brooks), NSF DMS2012286 (PI A. Veneziani) and DMS2038118 (PI: J. Nagy) 

Bio: Alessandro Veneziani is a Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Emory University, Atlanta, GA USA, and CSO of COVANOS, Inc. He attained his Master in Electronic Engineering (Politecnico di Milano, IT 1994) and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (University of Milano, IT 1998). He works on numerical modeling of cardiovascular problems, with particular attention to the translation of methods from the benchmarks to the clinics. He authored more than 90 journal papers, co-edited two research books, co-authored one textbook. He was awarded the SIAM Outstanding Paper Prize (2004 with A. Quarteroni and P. Zunino), the Giovanni Sacchi-Landriani International Prize (2007), the ACM Most Notable Paper (2014 with S. Perotto).