The present invention relates to body implantable devices, and more particularly to prostheses including stents and grafts intended for long term or permanent intraluminal fixation.
A variety of patient treatment and diagnostic procedures involve the use of devices inserted into the body of a patient and intraluminally implanted. Among these devices are prostheses as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,771 (Wallsten). These devices are flexible, tubular, braided structures formed of helically wound thread elements. A delivery catheter includes gripping members for securing a prosthesis to the catheter. In deployment, the gripping members and catheter are removed, allowing the prosthesis, to assume a substantially cylindrical shape as it radially expands and substantially conforms to a blood vessel wall or other tissue.
Metallic thread elements or strands are generally favored for applications requiring flexibility and effective resistance to radial compression after implantation. Metallic strands can be thermally formed by a moderately high temperature age-hardening process while wound about a mandrel in the desired helical configuration. The strands cooperate to provide the requisite strength, due to their high modulus of elasticity.
The flexibility of the strands also is important, as it permits a radial compression of the stent (by an axial elongation) that facilitates delivery of the stent through narrow blood vessels or other lumens toward the intended treatment site. Because the self-expanding device generally remains at least slightly radially compressed after fixation, its restoring force can provide acute fixation. The flexible stent can accommodate a wider range of lumen diameters, reducing the need to precisely match the stent and lumen as to size. The favorable combination of strength and flexibility is due to the properties of the strands themselves, and the arrangement of strands, i.e. the axial spacing between adjacent helical strands, the braiding angles of the strands, etc. Accordingly, conventional stents characteristically have an open mesh construction as shown in FIGS. 2a (relaxed) and 2b (radially constrained).
U.S. Pat. No. 4,681,110 (Wiktor) discloses a flexible tubular liner, insertable into the aorta to treat an aneurisym. The liner is a tight weave of flexible plastic strands, designed to self-expand against the aneurisym to direct blood flow past the aneurisym. In this context, a tight weave is intended to minimize leakage, so that the liner can effectively shunt blood through to eliminate the aneurysmal sack from the blood path.
Those of skill in the art have generally encountered difficulty in providing a device that simultaneously accommodates the competing needs of low permeability, and strength and flexibility for considerable radial compression and expansion.
One known approach to counter this problem is a combination stent/graft, in which a compliant but substantially fixed-radius and tightly-woven graft is sutured or otherwise coupled to a radially expandable stent. The stent upon release is intended to radially expand to the graft diameter. This, however, generally requires a careful matching of the graft diameter with the lumen diameter at the treatment site. Otherwise, either an oversized graft is compressed between the stent and body tissue with undesirable folds or gathering of the graft material, or an undersized graft prevents the stent from expanding sufficiently to anchor the device.
Several prosthesis constructions have been suggested, particularly involving three dimensional braiding as disclosed in international Patent Publications No. WO91/10766. For example, see International Patent Publication No. WO92/16166, No. WO94/06372, and No. WO94/06373. These publications, all of which are incorporated by reference herein, discuss composite grafts or other braided structures that combine different types of strands, e.g. multifilament yarns, monofilaments, fusible materials, and collagens. In all of these disclosures, the woven or braided structure is heat set after braiding to impart the desired nominal shape to the device. Accordingly, all strands and filaments must be compatible with the heat set conditions (primarily the high temperature), limiting the types of materials that can be interbraided into the device.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a three-dimensionally braided prosthesis including structural strands and other strands interbraided with the structural strands, in which the types of materials for such other strands are not limited by conditions necessary to thermally set or otherwise selectively shape the structural strands.
Another object is to provide a process for three-dimensionally braiding a tubular prosthesis to provide a gradient in permeability, porosity, strength or other structural property in the radial direction.
A further object is to provide, in a three-dimensional braiding process involving the interbraiding of multiple strands, a means for selectively cold-working a portion of the strands to predetermine a nominal shape of the interbraided structure.
Yet another object is to provide an interbraided device incorporating the strength, resilience and range of diameters associated with stents, and the low permeability associated with grafts, adapted to incorporate a radial gradient in porosity or another characteristic.