ABSTRACT
The term stent, originally defined in dental reconstruction practice at the turn of the 20th century, now commonly denotes a short metal or plastic filamentous tube that is inserted into the lumen of a vessel (artery, bile duct, ureter, trachea, etc.), especially to keep a formerly blocked passageway open [1]. More specifically, a stent is used to provide radial support to the vascular wall while healing takes place after a minimally invasive or open procedure. As early as 1912, endovascular support devices were placed in the canine aorta to maintain luminal patency under various conditions. Vascular stents similar in design and function to current devices were introduced in the 1960s and have since received increasingly heavy attention. The use of coronary stents in interventional procedures increased from 5 to 10% in 1994 to over 80% in 2000. It is estimated that more than 1.3 million percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) procedures were performed worldwide in 1999 [2-4] and stents were employed in about 70% of these cases [5, 6]. Current indications for stenting are given in Table 1.
