Aortic deformation research has a long history within the UT, started long before the multi-modality medical imaging (M3I) group was founded. The basis has been laid in the thesis of Almar Klein (UT 2011). Thereafter, the clinical elaborations have been given substance by the PhD work of Maaike Koenrades (UT 2019) and Jaimy Simmering (UT 2023).
The main goal of the Stented Vascular Triplet (SVT) project is improving the treatment for patients with aortic aneurysms by optimizing the stentgraft design based on
in vivo,
in vitro and in silico geometry and flow dynamics.
The tools to reach this goal are:
- In depth analysis of in vivo deformation of stentgrafts;
- Initiating and continuing studies on the influence of pulsatile blood flow on stentgraft deformation and flow quantification parameters;
- Further development of patient specific phantoms that form the bridge between in vivo and in vitro observations;
- In depth evaluation of in vitro deformation and flow quantification in aortic aneurysm phantoms, with and without endografts placed in them;
- Initiate research into the contribution of in silico phantoms.
During this PhD you will continue and potentially initiate clinical studies focussing on the deformation of the aorta and stentgraft during the cardiac cycle, during the respiratory cycle and during follow-up. Also you will increase the knowledge on the interaction between stentgraft deformation during the cardiac cycle and its impact on blood flow patterns. To this end, you will continue collecting the data from clinical trials, analysing this data and draw conclusions from this together with the team, including the R&D staff of the supporting stentgraft manufacturers and several clinical AAA expert centres. And last but not least, you will combine the findings of both the
in vivo and
in vitro projects by merging the deformation and flow information into new and improved settings. Within the project you will collaborate closely with a post-doc and another PhD candidate, also assigned to the project.
The SVT project is funded by the Top Technology Twente Connecting Industry program of the University of Twente in collaboration with Terumo Aortic. The project is located within the Multi-Modality Medical Imaging (M3i) group in the TechMed Centre of the UT in very close collaboration with the Physics of Fluids (PoF) group and Mathematics of Imaging and AI (MIA). It will be supervised by prof. dr. R (Bob) H. Geelkerken, prof. dr. Michel M.P.J. Reijnen, dr. Erik. Groot Jebbink and Hadi Mirgolbabaee.