The influence of the nylon balloon stiffness on the efficiency of the intra-aortic balloon occlusion.

In interventional procedures, the balloon inflation is used to occlude the artery and thus reduce bleeding. There is no practically accepted measure of the procedure efficiency. A finite element method model with state-of-the-art modelling techniques was built in order to predict the occlusion levels under the influence of different balloon inflation and its material stiffness. The geometries of a healthy human thoracic aorta and an occlusion balloon were idealized. The non-linear constitutive material of Gasser-Ogden-Holzapfel model was employed for the thoracic aorta; the balloon was model as the hyperelastic model. The realistic physiological blood pressure and the balloon inflation pressures were applied to simulate the different occlusion levels. The final outcome shows an important influence of the material stiffness on the balloon deformation and thus the occlusion efficiency.