Development of 3D printable bioresorbable coronary artery stents: A virtual testing approach

Abstract Following the emergence of fully bioresorbable stents (BRS) for the restoration of patency of occluded atherosclerotic arteries, there has been a sustained growth of research in the development of new biomaterials and manufacturing methods for such stents. Three-dimensional printing is one of the exciting fields for the manufacture of coronary BRS. Here, we show a virtual testing approach for the development of 3D printable coronary artery stents based on bioresorbable polymeric biomaterials. In the study, the authors designed 10 novel 3D printable stents and manufactured them using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) 3D-printing technology. Also, a virtual testing approach based on finite element methods was used to characterize the in vivo structural response of the stents with a view to assessing the suitability of the stent designs for use in the restoration of patency for occluded coronary arteries. The approach presented here can represent a future pre-operative management tool for interventional cardiologists to assess the structural performance of bespoke patient-specific 3D printable stent designs prior to manufacture and implantation at the occluded site.