Numerical Simulation of Thrombus Aspiration Catheter: Preliminary Results

Thrombus aspiration is one of the available therapies for the treatment of thrombosis diseases. It is an effective option especially in the case of early stage clot formation. Nowadays there is a major research effort to improve catheter design in term of ease of use, less drawback and higher efficiency. The main aim of this study is to consider the performance of a standard catheter and predict the behavior of clot during the aspiration phase using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques. Three cases are modeled and compared one another to assess catheter performance and efficiency according to different rheological models for the clot. In the first case the clot is considered to be Newtonian with early stage coagulation and no surface tension, in the second case the clot exhibits higher viscosity due to the longer time passed after coagulation, but it has not surface tension, in the third case the clot is assumed to be Newtonian which is formed in early stages of coagulation but has surface tension. In all cases clot is assumed to behave like a viscous fluid.