Background: Endovascular aortic repair (EVAR) of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) requires a very complex preoperative planning process, e.g. with respect to stent-graft selection and stent-graft oversizing, which must be individually adapted to the patient specific case and which is strongly based on the interventionalist's experience. Objectives: In this study, it is investigated whether the use of a digital twin could increase objectivity and optimize the experience based preoperative planning process and hence reduce the method-associated complication rate. Methods: Based on preoperative patient-specific data, realistic AAA and realistic stent-graft simulation models of common commercial stent-grafts are generated. Subsequently, virtual endovascular AAA repair is used to predict the postoperative configuration of stent-graft and AAA. Different application examples of this process chain are intended to demonstrate the potential benefits of the use of a digital twin in EVAR. Results: The potential applicability and the benefit of a digital twin for the optimization of the preoperative stent-graft selection and sizing as well as for the predictive estimation of the complication likelihood based on mechanical and geometrical parameters could be exemplarily demonstrated and validated. Conclusions: The good predictive quality makes the digital twin a highly promising planning tool in the preoperative planning phase of EVAR with potentially versatile applications.     «

Background: Endovascular aortic repair (EVAR) of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) requires a very complex preoperative planning process, e.g. with respect to stent-graft selection and stent-graft oversizing, which must be individually adapted to the patient specific case and which is strongly based on the interventionalist's experience. Objectives: In this study, it is investigated whether the use of a digital twin could increase objectivity and optimize the experience based preoperative p...     »