balloons are discussed in wang et al u s pat no 5 195 969 and u s ser no 08 130 283 filed oct 1 1993 the entire contents of both of which is hereby incorporated by reference a cross sectional side view of a balloon with multilayers 8a 8b is shown in fig6 in other embodiments the balloon may be formed of a blend of pet and other polymer materials e g polyethylene as discussed in u s ser no 07 612 073 filed nov 9 1990 the entire contents of which is incorporated herein by reference preferred wall thicknesses are between 0 3 to 3 thousandths of an inch with the wall thickness of proximal section 24 being slightly greater than the wall thickness of distal section 28 to promote withdrawal in the event of a catastrophic failure to asymmetric balloon 12 the asymmetric taper arrangement according to the invention can also be used with balloons made of compliant polymers e g polyethylene especially in cases where these balloons are formed with relatively large wall thicknesses which may have a greater resistance to deformation when the balloon engages a body lumen wall thus the asymmetric balloon including the long proximal taper can also facilitate removal in compliant balloons referring also to fig5 transition taper angle 34 a 34 is the angle between longitudinal axis 30 and the line formed between point 34 at which the arc of the transition region of the balloon meets the cylindrical working.