A review of production technologies and materials for manufacturing of cardiovascular stents

The purpose of this article is to give a general overview of the production technologies of stents with consideration of their design and materials. Since the beginning of the use of stents in medicine for atherosclerosis treatment, their development has changed rapidly. Various stents have also been developed with the development of materials science, treatment techniques and new manufacturing processes. In this way the development has shifted from the initial bare-metal stents (BMS), to drug-eluting stents (DES) and bio-resorbable stents (BRS), which are made of biodegradable polymers or metals. Various studies agree that it will be necessary to further review the experimentally obtained material properties with analytical and numerical studies. Here, the computational modelling (Finite element analysis - FEA and Computational fluid dynamics - CFD) was found as a valuable tool when evaluating stent mechanics and optimizing stent design. The development of the stent manufacturing technologies has also changed and been supplemented over the years. Nowadays, 3D printing could be an exciting manufacturing method to produce polymeric bio-materials, suitable for the latest generation of bio-degradable stents applications.