Smart Guidewires for Smooth Navigation in Neurovascular Intervention

Abstract

Smart nitinol guidewires have been proposed to improve trackability, facilitating the advancement of catheters through complex vascular anatomies during neurovascular interventions. A smart 0.015 in. diameter nitinol guidewire was actualized through Joule heating of oneway and twoway shape memory alloys (SMA). The device functionalities in terms of bending performance were analyzed: (1) trackability of a 4 Fr catheter as determined in an anatomically correct in vitro environment; (2) time and spatial response of the smart guidewire as a function of material temperature and applied current; and (3) thrombogenic effects as a function of temperature and applied voltage. The results suggest that smart guidewires have substantially improved trackability (i.e., deflection of 15 deg) to overcome the “ledge effectâ€‌ with the absence of thrombogenicity via a smart guidewire–catheter combined transcatheter based procedure which keeps the catheter surface temperature at 30–33 آ°C.