Towards Test Bench for Aspiration Catheters in Realistic Evaluation Scenarios

Aspiration catheters play an important role in mechanical thrombectomy in interventional neuroradiology as they provide support for stent retrievers or are increasingly used separately for contact aspiration. To evaluate the performance of different aspiration catheters in terms of suction force, most current studies rely on manual measurement methods or the suction force is not measured close to the aspiration catheter tip. Moreover, there is currently no standardized method that records measurements digitally and with high temporal resolution. To overcome these challenges, we propose a new test bench that simulates a dedicated aspiration scenario and takes measurements close to the aspiration catheter tip. To meet the requirements, a simplified vascular phantom, a pressure sensor and a simplified clot model were implemented in the prototype. To demonstrate the applicability of the prototype, two commonly used aspiration catheters were evaluated. The obtained measurements show that it is possible to perform standardized comparisons between aspiration catheters from different manufacturers as well as different aspiration pumps and aspiration tubings and their combinations. The developed prototype overcomes the still widely used manual and semi-manual and thus error prone measurement methods for the evaluation of vacuum based thrombectomy systems.