Permeability and Porosity of Embolic Protection Filters: An Experimental Study

Endovascular therapies are an evolving form of treatment for stenosed atherosclerotic blood vessels. In particular, stenting and angioplasty of the carotid artery has recently gained more attention. Due to risk of periprocedural distal embolization, cerebral protection devices such as embolic protection filters (EPFs), which maintain distal perfusion during the intervention, have been developed to capture embolized plaque particles. This investigation studied in vitro the effects of a deployed EPF on flow rate in the internal carotid artery. The pseudopermeability of each device was calculated by maintaining a constant pressure gradient during its deployed state and after injection of emboli by adjusting the flow rate. High resolution images were used to calculate the porosity of each device. Experimentally-determined permeability and porosity can be used in computational fluid dynamics simulations as a design optimization approach to determine the optimal pore size for each EPF.