Abdominal aortic aneurysm and stent graft phantom manufactured by medical rapid prototyping

A novel human aorta phantom built by medical rapid prototyping for use in computed tomography (CT) scanning is described. The phantom contained a stent graft that was deployed internally to mimic a repaired aortic aneurysm. The phantom was produced to allow assessment of the CT appearance of a stent graft inside an aorta using the new virtual intravascular endoscopy image presentation technique. The stent graft utilized contained suprarenal components (metal fixation struts), and these were placed with these struts covering the renal artery ostia. The phantom was filled with iodinated contrast medium at a concentration that produced a density similar to that found in normal CT angiographic scanning. The model was scanned at a variety of slice thicknesses, pitch and image reconstruction intervals. Visualization of the stent suprarenal components in relation to the renal artery ostia is shown and the overestimation of stent wire strut diameter demonstrated.