FATIGUE BEHAVIOR OF STENT IN BICUSPID AORTIC VALVE

Valve stents widely used in tricuspid aortic valves are also widely used in bicuspid aortic valves in clinical practice. However, due to the special anatomical factors of bicuspid valve patients, the fatigue damage of the bicuspid valve stent is accelerated. In this study, the finite element method was used to study the influences of aortic annulus diameter, annulus ellipticity, and stent thickness on the fatigue behavior of the stent in the bicuspid aortic valve. The results showed that the risk of fatigue damage of the valve stent increases with the decrease in the diameter of the aortic annulus implanted. Selecting the appropriate thickness of the stent can significantly reduce the risk of fatigue damage to the valve stent. The ellipticity of 0.3 is a critical point, and the fatigue safety factor will increase significantly when the ellipticity exceeds 0.3. This work provides insights into better bicuspid valve stent design and clinical selection of valve stents for the bicuspid aortic valve.