The use of stents in bodily lumen is well known. A stent is typically delivered in an unexpanded state to a desired location in a bodily lumen via a medical device such as a catheter. Once the stent is at the desired bodily location, it is either expanded with a balloon or other suitable device or allowed to expand by, for example, withdrawing a restraining sheath.
Helical or spiral wound stents are generally known, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,042,597, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Helical stents may exhibit undesirable effects due to shape changes upon expansion. For example, as a helical stent unwinds during expansion, it may experience a large amount of foreshortening or reduction in length. Helical stents may also have relatively large gaps between windings in an expanded state. In some cases, large gaps may result in poor vessel wall support and even tissue prolapse.
There remains a need for helical or wound stents having desirable flexibility which experience minimal foreshortening upon expansion and provide suitable vessel support in an expanded state.
All US patents and applications and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Without limiting the scope of the invention a brief summary of some of the claimed embodiments of the invention is set forth below. Additional details of the summarized embodiments of the invention and/or additional embodiments of the invention may be found in the Detailed Description of the Invention below.
A brief abstract of the technical disclosure in the specification is provided as well only for the purposes of complying with 37 C.F.R. 1.72. The abstract is not intended to be used for interpreting the scope of the claims.