Blood vessel occlusions are commonly treated by mechanically enhancing blood flow in the affected vessels, such as by employing a stent. Stents act as scaffolding, functioning to physically hold open and, if desired, to expand the wall of affected vessels. Typically stents are capable of being compressed, so that they can be inserted through small lumens via catheters, and then expanded to a larger diameter once they are at the desired location. Examples in the patent literature disclosing stents include U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,665 issued to Palmaz, U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,882 issued to Gianturco, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,886,062 issued to Wiktor.
Stents are used not only for mechanical intervention but also as vehicles for providing biological therapy. Biological therapy can be achieved by medicating the stents. Medicated stents provide for the local administration of a therapeutic substance at the diseased site. Local delivery of a therapeutic substance is a preferred method of treatment because the substance is concentrated at a specific site and thus smaller total levels of medication can be administered in comparison to systemic dosages that often produce adverse or even toxic side effects for the patient.
One method of medicating a stent involves the use of a polymeric carrier coated onto the surface of the stent. A composition including a solvent, a polymer dissolved in the solvent, and a therapeutic substance dispersed in the blend is applied to the stent by spraying the composition onto the stent. The solvent is allowed to evaporate, leaving on the stent surfaces a coating of the polymer and the therapeutic substance impregnated in the polymer. In order to quicken the process, the stents may be baked so that the solvent evaporates quickly.
Shortcomings of the above-described method of medicating a stent is the potential for shot to shot variation of the coating weight and the need for baking or otherwise drying each stent after the coating application. These two shortcomings limit production throughput. Specifically, after each coating process (e.g., primer, drug coat, topcoat), the stent must be weighed to calculate the amount of drug and polymer deposited onto the stent. In addition, up to two hours bake time can be required to evaporate the solvent from the stent.
Accordingly, a new apparatus for spraying coating is needed to increase production throughput.