A planar approach for manufacturing cardiac stents: design, fabrication, and mechanical evaluation

A new approach that uses planar batch manufacturing technologies is presented for the design and fabrication of coronary artery stents. Stent samples with different wall patterns have been fabricated from 50-[micro]m-thick stainless steel foil using microelectrodischarge machining. Stents have been expanded to tubular shapes by using angioplasty balloons, both inside mock arteries and without external confinement (i.e., free-standing). Free-standing stents exhibit diameter variations of Index Terms--Angioplasty, arc, electrodischarge, micromachining, stent.