Our objective was to compare the radial forces of several stents ex vivo to identify stents suitable for rescue of the unexpected coverage of aortic arch branches in thoracic endovascular aortic repair.

We measured the radial forces of two types of self-expanding bare nitinol stents (E-luminexx and Epic) used singly or as double-walled pairs, and of three endoprostheses used in thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR, Gore c-TAG, Relay, and Valiant) by compressing the stent using an MTS Instron universal testing machine (model #5582). We also examined the compressive effects of the TEVAR endoprostheses and the bare nitinol stents on each other.

The radial force was greater in the center than at the edge of each stent. In all stents tested, the radial force decreased incrementally with increasing stent diameter. The radial force at the center was two times greater when using two stents than with a single stent. In the compression test, only E-luminexx used as a pair was not compressed after compressing a Relay endoprosthesis by 12 mm.

Two E-luminexx stents are appropriate to restore the blood flow if a TEVAR endoprosthesis covers the innominate artery following innominate–carotid–left subclavian arterial bypass.