ABSTRACT
Recently, foldable origami structures have been applied in the medical field, for example, the stent and stent graft [Kuribayashi et al. 06, You and Kuribayashi 09]. The stent and stent graft are types of flexible tubular medical devices that are capable of being folded into small dimensions for minimum invasive surgery and then expanded to open up a blocked organ and also protect a weakened wall in the human body. They are used for treatment of such diseases as stenosis, aneurysm, or esophageal cancer [Serruys et al. 94, Chung and Qadir 98]. Compared with traditional methods (e.g., open heart surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy), minimum
invasive surgery using the foldable structures of the stents and stent grafts causes less pain and scarring and reduces recovery time for the patients, as well as providing lower health-care costs. The stents and stent grafts are generally made of metals, such as a stainless steel and shape memory alloy, that are foreign to the human body, resulting in the development of re-stenosis. To prevent the problem of re-stenosis, drug eluting stents have been produced, but they are still in development.
