Modeling Arterial Drug Transport from Drug-eluting Stents: Effect of Blood Flow on the Concentration Distribution close to the Endothelial Surface

Abstract : Drug-eluting stents (DES) are commonly used for treating coronary atherosclerosis. Despite the broad effectiveness of DES, ~5% of treated patients experience complications including in-stent restenosis and late-stent thrombosis. Furthermore, drugs used in DES not only inhibit proliferation of smooth muscle cells but also affect re-endothelialization. We have developed a computational model of the transport of drugs eluted from DES within stented arteries. Previous models have typically treated the arterial wall as one homogeneous porous medium and have often ignored drug reaction with cells in the arterial wall or used an equilibrium assumption. Our model incorporates the multi-layer structure of the arterial wall and accounts for the reaction of the eluted drug with cells of the arterial wall.