Cerebrospinal fluid diversion via ventricular shunting is the prevailing contemporary treatment for hydrocephalus. The CSF shunt appeared in its current form in the 1950s, and modern CSF shunts are the result of 6 decades of significant progress in neurosurgery and biomedical engineering. However, despite revolutionary advances in material science, computational design optimization, manufacturing, and sensors, the ventricular catheter (VC) component of CSF shunts today remains largely unchanged in its functionality and capabilities from its original design, even though VC obstruction remains a primary cause of shunt failure. The objective of this paper is to investigate the history of VCs, including successful and failed alterations in mechanical design and material composition, to better understand the challenges that hinder development of a more effective design.

In this research an optimization methodology and 3D computational fluid dynamics algorithm were coupled to reach an important design objective for ventricular catheters: uniform inlet flow distribution. The optimized catheter design presented significantly improves on previous designs explored in the literature and on standard catheter designs used clinically. The automated, iterative fluid simulation framework described in this work can be used to rapidly explore design parameter influence on other flow-related objectives in the future.

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunts are fully implantable medical devices that are used to treat patients suffering from conditions characterized by elevated intracranial pressure, such as hydrocephalus. One of the primary causes of CSF shunt failure is mechanical obstruction of the ventricular catheter, a component of the shunt system implanted directly into the brain’s ventricular system. This study aims to characterize the CSF flow through ventricular catheters via a 3-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The fully-parametrized model has allowed for exploration of the catheter’s geometric design features, with the goal of reducing the incidence of catheter obstruction. As the first step towards this goal, a design optimization study was performed with the objective of achieving a uniform flow rate distribution among the catheter’s inlet holes. To perform this study, the CFD model was coupled with an optimization framework, and a large number of simulations were run on a high-performance computing system to determine the optimal design for target flow performance. This optimization study advances the field of CSF shunt design by providing systematically derived correlations between the catheter’s geometric parameters and CSF flow through the catheter’s inlet holes.