A review on biodegradable biliary stents: materials and future trends

Biliary stricture is defined as the reduction and narrowing of the bile duct lumen, which can be caused by many factors such as cancer and inflammation. Biliary stent placement can effectively alleviate benign and malignant biliary strictures. However, the commonly used plastic or metallic biliary stents are far from ideal and do not satisfy all clinical requirements,although several types of biodegradable biliary stents have been developed and used clinically. In this review, we summarized current development status of biodegradable stents with the emphasis on the stent materials. We also presented the future development trends based on the published literature.