Characteristics of smooth muscle cells' shape and proliferation rate in novel short-term thermal angioplasty ex vivo and in vitro

We investigated the influences on the smooth muscle cells of temporally heated arterial walls in both ex vivo and in vitro study to determine the optimum heat parameter of novel short-term thermal angioplasty, Photo-thermo Dynamic Balloon Angioplasty (PTDBA). Arterial heating dilatation was performed by the prototype PTDBA balloon ex vivo. We found that the smooth muscle cells in the vessel wall were stretch-fixed after the heating dilatation ex vivo. The stretch-fixing rate of these cells was increased with the temperature rise in the balloon of PTDBA from 60°C to 70°C. We measured the proliferation rate of the stretch-fixed smooth muscle cells, which were extracted from porcine arteries, on specially designed culture equipment in vitro. It was observed that the proliferation rate was inhibited at 20% stretching compared to 10% stretching. We think the stretch-fixing of the smooth muscle cells might not be harmful for PTDBA performances.