Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the world. According to the American Heartx000D
Association, more than 85 million Americans suffer from cardiovascular disease with the total treatmentx000D
spending exceeding $320B in 2011 and expected to reach $1,208B in 2030. Aortic pathologies such asx000D
dissection and aneurysm represent a particularly emergent class of cardiovascular diseases. Open surgicalx000D
procedure is the current gold standard for treating thoracic aortic dissection. However, the stent graftx000D
implantation is one of the potential alternatives for treating patients at high risk for an open surgical procedure.x000D
Various hemodynamic parameters are suspected to be major mechanical factors related to the genesis andx000D
aneurysm growth.x000D
Vivitro Labs Inc. is an industry-leading cardiovascular test equipment and related laboratory testing company.x000D
Services include the assessment of hydrodynamic performance of cardio devices which are used for submissionx000D
with regulatory bodies such as the FDA. ViVitro's pulse duplicator is the most widely used heart simulator inx000D
the world. The company's problem is to broaden the suitability of the heart simulator to simulate a descendingx000D
aortic aneurysm before and after treatment by the stent graft implantation. The objective of this study is tox000D
investigate the suitability of the ViVitro's simulator for aortic aneurysm before and after stent graftx000D
implantation.