ABSTRACT
Stents are generally used instead of – or along with – angioplasty. It is collapsed into a small diameter and put over a balloon catheter. It is moved into the area of the blockage. When the balloon is inflated, the stent expands, locks in place and forms a scaffold. Stents need to be resistant and elastic to fulfill the procedure. Vascular stents keep diseased arteries open to a predetermined diameter after angioplasty and preserve a cylindrical lumen. Currently, there are two categories of stents: balloon expandable and self expandable (Fig. 1). Balloon expandable stents are typically cut from small diameter stainless steel tubing, mounted over an angioplasty balloon and then plastically deformed to final diameter. Self-expandable stents are stainless steel, tantalum, or nitinol and are usually compressed into a small diameter delivery catheter where they can be delivered to the deployment site. These stents are either cut from tubing or fabricated as a wire mesh (30).
