Stent

Abstract

A stent () formed by slitting a tube to create a matrix of struts which are separated from each other by no more than the width of the slit and which lie more or less parallel to each other and to the longitudinal axis of the tube, the slitted tube being radially expandable to a stenting disposition in which the struts exhibit a zigzag pattern in successive loops around the circumference of the stent, the angle each strut makes with the longitudinal axis increasing as the stent diameter increases the zigzag pattern exhibiting a cusp between any two adjacent struts with selected tied cusps of any one loop being connected by a bridge () to a facing cusp of the adjacent loop, the bridge extending in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the tube and with intervening free cusps (), between any two bridge of a loop, not being connected to the adjacent loop the zigzag pattern exhibiting a lengthwise staggering of circumferentially adjacent said slits to the extent that the lengths of two circumferentially adjacent struts on the zigzag pattern that flank a tied cusp are different and further such that, in the said stenting disposition, the free cusps of adjacent loops are circumferentially displaced from each other; and characterized in that: a majority of the struts in any one of the successive loops share a first common length X, and any remaining struts in said one loop share a second common length Y (), wherein Y<X.