Developing a Carotid Pseudoaneurysm Model in Swine.

Background: Traumatic carotid artery pseudoaneurysms (PSAs) represent a vascular anomaly with potential for serious complications, including stroke. Traditional treatments involve endovascular stenting, which may not be ideally suited to otherwise healthy vessels that have the potential to remodel. Given the limitations of smaller animal models in replicating human vasculature and the need for improved treatment modalities, this study introduces a novel swine model for the creation and evaluation of carotid PSAs.

Methods: The PSAs were created from bovine dura and anastomosed in an end-to-side fashion to bilateral carotid arteries. The PSAs were radiologically followed up post-operatively and were harvested at 3 and 10 days for histological analysis.

Results: Pseudoaneurysms were successfully created in both animals without intra-operative or immediate post-operative complications. Radiological analysis showed well-perfused PSAs with intra-aneurysmal turbulence, hemodynamically mimicking human carotid artery PSAs. There was no evidence of thrombus or arterial stenosis. Histological examinations revealed thrombus maturation and tight anastomosis of the PSA sac with the native artery.

Conclusions: This PSA swine model offers a replicable, cost-effective, and easily implemented tool with the potential to advance carotid PSA management and educational efforts in vascular surgery.

Clinical impact: The model presented in this methodology paper allows for a standardized PSA animal model allowing for the standardization of a clinical entity which is frequently heterogenenous in morphology. This can allow for the development of new therapies or provide a ground truth for computer modelling for further in silico study.