Post-angioplasty remodelling of coronary arteries investigated via a chemo-mechano-biological in silico model

This work presents the application of a chemo-mechano-biological constitutive model of soft tissues for describing tissue inflammatory response to damage in collagen constituents. The material model is implemented into a nonlinear finite element formulation to follow up a coronary standard balloon angioplasty for one year. Numerical results, compared with available in vivo clinical data, show that the model reproduces the temporal dynamics of vessel remodelling associated with subintimal damage. Such dynamics are bimodular, being characterized by an early tissue resorption and lumen enlargement, followed by late tissue growth and vessel constriction. Applicability of the modelling framework in retrospective studies is demonstrated, and future extension towards prospective applications is discussed.