on the valve prosthesis during ventricular contraction so the initial deployment must be accurate preferably superelastic metal wire such as nitinol u00ae wire is also used for the stent for the inner wire based leaflet assembly that is disposed within the stent and for the cuff wire form such stents are available from any number of commercial manufacturers such as pulse systems laser cut stents are preferably made from nickel titanium nitinol u00ae but also without limitation made from stainless steel cobalt chromium titanium and other functionally equivalent metals and alloys or pulse systems braided stent that is shape set by heat treating on a fixture or mandrel one key aspect of the stent design is that it be compressible and when released have the stated property that it return to its original uncompressed shape this requirement limits the potential material selections to metals and plastics that have shape memory properties with regards to metals nitinol u00ae has been found to be especially useful since it can be processed to be austenitic martensitic or super elastic martensitic and super elastic alloys can be processed to demonstrate the required compression features one possible construction of the stent envisions the laser cutting of a thin isodiametric nitinol u00ae tube the laser cuts form regular cutouts in the thin nitinol tube secondarily the tube.