The Deformation Rate of Smooth Muscle Cells in Vessel Walls After Short-Duration Heating Dilatation in a Porcine Model Ex Vivo and In Vivo

We have proposed a novel short-duration thermal angioplasty with uniform temperature distribution. Although the dilatation mechanism of our short-duration heating dilatation was reported in our previous study, the influences on smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are not sufficiently understood. We studied the influences on SMCs in terms of shape change and discussed the relationship between the SMCs’ shape change and dilatation mechanism ex vivo and in vivo. We found that the SMCs were fixed in the stretched condition after our short-duration heating dilatation both ex vivo and in vivo. The deformation rate of SMCs’ shape, measured by the cells’ nuclei, was increased with rising balloon maximum temperature (T balloon), and the same tendency was observed for the arterial dilatation rate. We hypothesize that the SMCs were fixed in the stretched condition because the arterial dilatation with our short-duration heating dilatation was performed without any plastic deformations of the vessel wall, causing the vessel wall itself to be stretched. We also prospect that the reasons for the positive correlation between the deformation rate of SMCs’ shape and T balloon are that (i) the area heated over 60 °C was expanded with rising T balloon, and (ii) the arterial dilatation rate was also increased with rising T balloon.