Intracoronary catheters are used for a multitude of medical interventions associated with coronary disease. Among the newer class of interventions is the injection of medication into the artery flow and in particular, the injection of stem cells which have the potential to regenerate damaged tissues from myocardial infarctions.
In order for a successful treatment, the medication or injected stem cells must spread across the artery cross section and must diffuse into the lumen wall. In order to facilitate this action, modifications to traditional injections have been proposed. Among the proposals are the direct injection of the cells into the arterial wall or the introduction of cells from multiple lumens which allow quicker dispersion across the cross section.
In this study, a newly designed catheter with six injection ports was simulated and the impact of operating parameters on medication/stem cell diffusion was quantified.
Figure 1 shows the multilumen catheter (ND Infusion...
