Bloodvessel-on-a-chip and vascular ingrowth

Endovascular treatment of patients with dilating vascular disease consists of inserting a guide wire in the artery, over which a balloon is inflated and/or a stent graft is placed. In dilating vascular disease the aneurysm is bridged by a polymer-coated stent graft, with the aim of reducing the pressure on the aneurysm.
Treatment for dilating vascular disease can lead to problems that can occur soon after the procedure, but also during many years thereafter. Leakage between the endoprosthesis and the vascular wall (type I endoleak) occurs in 4-5% of patients treated for an aneurysm, for which the patient often needs to be re-treated, as the aneurysm remains under pressure. It is therefore necessary to take concrete steps to promote vascular wall-stent interaction and prevent leakage by means of biofixation (controlled ingrowth) and thereby reduce complications, which is not possible with the current inert material.

Because the procedure takes place minimally invasively under X-ray examination, it is not easy to determine what interaction takes place between the prosthesis (stent or stent graft) and the vascular wall. Animal or human (cadaver) arteries are now often used to study this, but the biological activity, and therefore the real in-vivo environment, is difficult to mimic.
In order to be able to investigate cardiovascular diseases in a controlled environment with high biological relevance, a blood vessel-on-a-chip is an extremely suitable instrument. With the blood vessel-on-a-chip, the number of animal studies can be minimized. The effects of stent-tissue interaction can be investigated more efficiently and effectively in this setup due to its high reproducibility.