Persistence of the pathology of in-stent restenosis even with the advent of drug-eluting stents warrants the development of highly resolved in silico models. These computational models assist in gaining insights into the transient biochemical and cellular mechanisms involved and thereby optimize the stent implantation parameters. Within this work, an already established fully-coupled Lagrangian finite element framework for modeling the restenotic growth is enhanced with the incorporation of endothelium-mediated effects and pharmacological influences of rapamycin-based drugs embedded in the polymeric layers of the current generation drug-eluting stents. The continuum mechanical description of growth is further justified in the context of thermodynamic consistency. Qualitative inferences are drawn from the model developed herein regarding the efficacy of the level of drug embedment within the struts as well as the release profiles adopted. The framework is then intended to serve as a tool for clinicians to tune the interventional procedures patient-specifically.

翻译：即使药物洗脱支架的出现，支架内再狭窄病理的持续存在仍促使高分辨率计算机模型的开发。这些计算模型有助于深入了解涉及的瞬时生化及细胞机制，从而优化支架植入参数。在本研究中，一个已建立的用于模拟再狭窄生长的全耦合拉格朗日有限元框架得到增强，纳入了内皮介导效应及基于雷帕霉素的药物（嵌入当代药物洗脱支架聚合物层中的药物）的药理影响。生长的连续介质力学描述在热力学一致性背景下得到进一步论证。本文开发的模型就支架杆内药物嵌入水平及所采用的释放曲线有效性得出了定性推论。该框架旨在作为临床医生进行患者特异性介入手术调整的工具。