Numerical Modeling of Laser-Assisted Blood Vessel Welding
Ryabkin D.I.1,2, Suchkova V.V.1,2, Gerasimenko A.Yu.1,2
1National Research University of Electronic Technology, Moscow, Russia
2Sechenov University или I.M. Sechenov First MSMU, Moscow, Russia
Abstract
Laser welding of blood vessels is a promising alternative to conventional suturing in microvascular surgery, offering immediate leak-tight closure while reducing foreign-body inflammatory response. To support the rational design of irradiation regimes for vessel welding, a three-dimensional voxel-based model was developed that explicitly represents the layered vascular geometry — vessel wall, lumen, and an indocyanine green (ICG)-doped albumin solder patch applied over the vessel surface. The model couples three physical mechanisms: light absorption governed by the Bouguer–Lambert–Beer law, heat transport described by the Pennes bioheat equation with blood perfusion and convective surface cooling, and thermal protein denaturation kinetics described by an Arrhenius damage integral, applied separately to the solder (weld formation) and to the vessel wall and surrounding tissue (thermal necrosis). The voxel representation allows the cylindrical vessel geometry to be reconstructed with arbitrary radius, wall thickness, and orientation. Using this model, a parametric sweep over laser power (0.12–0.48 W) and exposure time (1–5 s) was performed for a representative vessel-welding scenario, yielding 35 simulated regimes. For each regime, the coagulated solder (weld) volume and the necrotized vessel-wall/tissue volume were extracted from the Arrhenius damage field, and a Pareto front was constructed to identify regimes that maximize weld volume while limiting necrosis. Under a necrosis constraint of 0.15 mm³, the optimal regime (P = 0.48 W, exposure time 1 s) achieved a weld volume of 0.288 mm³ with only 0.080 mm³ of necrosis. The results indicate that vessel-sparing selectivity is achieved through localized solder absorption combined with short, high-power exposures, and the model offers a practical computational tool for planning laser vascular-welding protocols.
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Ryabkin D.I.
1National Research University of Electronic Technology, Moscow, Russia 2Sechenov University или I.M. Sechenov First MSMU, Moscow, Russia
Russia
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