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Access Type
WSU Access
Date of Award
January 2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Biomedical Engineering
First Advisor
Carolyn Harris
Abstract
Hydrocephalus is a neurological condition precipitated by an abnormal buildup of cerebrospinalfluid (CSF) that may lead to neurologic injury or death if left untreated. It is estimated that hydrocephalus impacts between 1-2 out of 1000 infants in the United States alone, contributing to $2 billion in healthcare costs annually. The most common method of hydrocephalus management is the surgical insertion of a shunt system to redirect the extra CSF into the peritoneum. However, these interventions have high failure rates with 98% of surgical treatments failing after 10 years. Despite 70 years of continued efforts, shunts still fail at a shocking rate necessitating medical intervention and revision surgeries. To date, only a few studies investigated shunt failure in in-vitro or in-vivo models. There is a critical need for a highly reproducible, physiologically relevant in vitro model for hydrocephalus. This investigation directly addresses the need for a cost-effective high-throughput in-vitro model for hydrocephalus. Furthermore, the architecture of commercially available catheters is restricted by the limitations of manufacturing processes. Our investigation also addresses the critical need for an improved method to produce ventricular catheters. Utilizing the in-vitro model and ventricular catheter manufacturing process we investigated the hypothesis that shunt obstruction rate is reduced in ventricular catheters with lower inherent resistance. We also systematically investigated the impact of catheter architecture on the resistance of catheters. Our results demonstrated a statistically significant inverse correlation between survival time and relative resistance (R=-0.495, P=0.027). Furthermore, the presented results provided preliminary evidence of a hypothesis-driven approach to ventricular catheter architecture optimization. The Experimental catheter with reduced relative resistance had a longer survival time compared to commercially available ventricular catheters. These results also provide proof of principle for our fully integrated catheter production and testing setup that could be utilized in future investigations to further improve the survival of ventricular catheters.
Recommended Citation
Faryami, Ahmad, "In Vitro Investigation Of Shunt Catheter Failure In Hydrocephalus Treatment" (2025). Wayne State University Dissertations. 4224.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/4224